Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Commissioner Hotkkey present. Commissioner Minsol Mshaw here. Commissioner Gormley Barnes here. And filling in for Chair Scovich, Commissioner um Bob Tantillo present. Okay, let's start out with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Well, thank you everyone that's uh shown up today. Um, we'll just do a a quick check here. Is does everyone have the documentation that we offered? If not, feel free to come up here. And if you have that, that's great. We're going to start out with the approval of uh the October 2025 meeting minutes. I'll allow allow everyone here. Oh, we have guests that are arriving. Folks, if you want to take uh the handouts here on the table, follow along. That'll help. So, folks, let's uh take some time right now amongst ourselves and look at the meeting minutes of uh October. And if you have any questions, revisions, comments, we'll take those. We'll pause here for a couple minutes.

any comments, revisions? Need more time? Good to go. Over here on the left. How about here on the right? Got a thumbs up and a smile. Okay. All right. Um the next item on the agenda is um need a motion second to get those approved. Oh, okay. Uh I'd like a motion to approve the minutes. I move to approve the October minutes and a second. I'll second. Okay. All right. Um, all in favor of approving the minutes from our last meeting in October, say I. I.

I. I.

Opposed. Okay, they're approved. All right. Um, for our late arrival in the audience there, um, if you didn't get the handouts, they're up there. You got them. Okay, you're all good. Um we're going to go through um the new business which is definitely the residential fence regulations. Uh the review process. I think it's important to understand um a good foundation of where this is all coming from. Um we're going to provide you with a overview of our methodology. We'll let you understand what the purpose is, the process we're going through and what we expect as the outcome. And the reason for that is to have a full transparency of what we're trying to accomplish here. So this overview document that you have in the handout and that we will go through first uh will help kind of set a foundation and from that point you'll start to develop questions and you're free to speak um as we get through that and we want to hear your thoughts. It's not um a closed door meeting. This is wide open. It's being uh uh recorded and broadcast online as well. So, this is u open door time and it's your time to speak up. Uh you have a seat at the table and um given today's situations out there, this is uh refreshing to be able to understand everything firsthand. Fair enough. Okay. So um this esteemed gentleman to my left is going to take us through the uh overview and um from that point um start to develop your questions and when we get to the point where we have public opinion that's an open forum for everyone to come in um speak at the podium try to get to the microphone um when you get to the podium state your uh

name and the address so we have that as a record can't can't ask addresses number addresses Yeah, we can ask addresses. Are you sure? I'm 110% sure we cannot ask addresses. Okay, no addresses. You could say I live over here. Maybe that's me. You can you can

Let me clarify. We You can offer your addresses. We do not ask for it. We do not imply you need to provide it. You can basically if you don't feel comfortable for it, you do not have to tell us that. And the reason I'm making that clarification is because in 2014 the um Illinois the Illinois uh packed public access counselor said for open meetings that to provide an address could have a freezing effect on public comment. So we cannot say that we ask you for it. We cannot imply that it would be helpful. We cannot even say we can't even ask we can't even say anything about it. If you want to offer it to us more than helpful. How would you know if somebody lived in the village?

It doesn't matter for public comment. does not matter because and I I'll explain to you why because the fact that we get money from the state and the state gets money from the feds and so one cent of the money from someone outside of this village outside of the federal outside anywhere in the country could hypothetically be in our coffers and because of that that means open meetings are open to the entirety of the public that comes in I don't agree with But I I say yeah that those are what those are what the sunshine laws tell us we have to do and that's why we do them. So

okay um so again the the purpose of this session is to gain some understanding about uh whether fences should or should not be allowed in the village. Uh the process we're going to go through is going to be explained in this overview document and then the outcome is however this develops and however many meetings we have and more surveys that are going to come in from residents. We'll have some totals and we'll make some recommendations to the board and from there you'll be able to see their process and we'll move forward uh exactly see where this whole decision will go. Fair enough. Okay. All right. So, let's get to this overview document. Um, if everyone has a copy of that, that's great. But let's uh go ahead with the overview.

All right. So, I'm going to run through it. Uh so u in July of this year, the board of trustees and the mayor provided a resolution that that directed the plan commission which you see here to res review regul regulations around residential fence fences in the village. um and to provide a recommendation. And as part of that, they asked um us to look at whether or not they are currently appropriate and then review if if they are not currently appropriate, what what they would recommend the changes would be and then anything else that would be going along with that, style, materials, locations, etc. Um as part of that, the community the commission basically broke this down into phases uh to look at it to make sure we do the process correctly and it is done. is done right and transparent and open and deliberative. So, uh in the August meeting, we introduced it, we spoke about it. Um basically what I just told you on that issue and then we also took uh public comments on that kind of the key themes that came out of those public comments. Um that there some residents supported fences for safety, liability, privacy, um and property value, potential property value increases reasons. Um some residents did not did not support them. Um, basically a lot of it was maintaining the village's open park-like character, avoiding uh enforcement complications such as whether or not they're being maintained or where if they're on the right property line, and then also um kind of just, you know, not making smaller lots more cluttered looking. Um, one of the things was also we discussed at that was looking at the potential conflicts between HOA rules and also planned unit development um, outlines and guidelines that are on there. Things like storm water issues about letting water run freely where it should be, setbacks, you know, letting it be in the easements. And then also, uh, a couple

couple people brought up whether or not there are um, issues with the tree ordinance maintaining trees. some people did not want to make sure that you know trees weren't being cut down for fences. Um and then finally we were looking at that as uh the last thing is how to engage the public, how to be educational on this. So in that that first August meeting the commission decided to approach it in phases. First being information gathering, the next being getting public input and then finally the recommendation drafting. Now um the September meeting was about gathering more information on that. And so we and so at the time, you know, the the commission and members of the public asked for additional information that they could use to kind of get a better outline of this issue on it. Um some of the things that staff provided was a a table of pool and um fence special uses and regulations on that for um for clarification on that. Pool pools are required to have a fence as part of safety. If in in the village code sometimes you are not you cannot have that. that they have like a locking mechanism on it, but really the the safest way is to in my my personal opinion, the safest way is to have a fence on that. So, um but that's the village ordinances also require a fence around a pool. Um there's also some uh regulations allowing for fences for special uh for reasonable accommodations in case there is a need for that for anyone who happens to live there that needs a fence for reasonable accommodation. Um, another thing that that was asked was looking at the parcels that abut major roads. Those roads being Planefield, Wolf, Joliet, and Willow Springs roads. Those are all not village roads. Those are county andor state roads. Um, they were asked, we also looked at HOAs and PUDs in the village. Um, and then a copy of draft survey questions. One of the clarifications was asked was

about uh dog runs. um dog runs and uh dog kennels in the village. Um and dog runs uh you know, you're allowed in the village to have a 75 foot square area uh off the main residence that can be used essentially for a dog going in and out of um as I mentioned before, pool fences are required under the codes. They're by right. But then we also discussed about um public screening issues between uh public uses and private uses. uh meaning like the Blackhawk fence about the Blackhawk fence. Um the Heritage Center fence. There's a fence along the Heritage Center that is used currently for screening to separate the Heritage Center where well where the Heritage Center used to be, but um that property from the neighbors. Um there's also uh a split rail fence in the black uh in the back of Blackhawk Park over there that it was put in as part of a deal um to allow for separation of Blackhawk Park while also allowing some utility uh easement grant on that. Um at the end of that uh discussion in September, we talked about survey planning. reviewed the 2019 survey data um when this question went out that was a survey monkey a digital online one went out um and looked at it and discussed whether our new the one that we sent out this current one going out and what and how to design that. Um, the key point in that was to keep that survey short, five questions or or under 10 questions at least at that time, but we've settled on five. And the reason being is, you know, we could ask questions about the specifications of what the fence should look like if we had fences, but we really didn't want to put the cart before the horse because if we never because if the recommendation was not to have fences, then there's no reason to ask people what type of fences they'd prefer. Additionally, the longer the survey, the less likely people are going to complete it. And so we really wanted to get down to the key policy issues which were which way would you consider having a fence? Uh would would

you con be in favor of the village allowing fences? Where would you be in if so where would you be in favor of them? And if even if you weren't in favor of fences generally were you in favor of fences along those major routes that I talked about before? And then finally a a demographic question basically asking where you were located generally speaking in the village and then an open-ended question at the end. Um, going on from that, uh, I kind of got a little ahead of myself. Basically, in in October, we went back and prevent and presented comprehensive background materials, um, and the final draft of survey. The reason we prevented we presented these comprehensive background materials is as many members actually have said and many at least one person has said when they walked in is we've had these discussions before. So how many times you know how we wanted to go back and see what these discussions were like and in doing that process um we looked at um there was a there was a discussion about it that we looked at all the meeting minutes from 1959 onward for the board um the and I always point out that the first time this fence discussion happened was less than a year after the village was started in 1960 um or 1959 it's was a discussion in 1960 about it so it's been an ongoing conversation it's come come up around 15 times in that time period about these discussions on defense regulations. So we wanted to see what the past what the past discussions were about what they centered on it's was centered on what we are talking about today safety privacy uh fence you know um property values open character everything that I've I've the public was speaking about in our August meeting and has been speaking about consistently also was the same thing at that time as well. Another thing we did for that was we also looked at the fence codes in 14 neighboring communities. Um we also included Cook County in there as well because we have unincorporated Cook County on our borders to see what they had on it.

Generally they their fences are between four and six feet tall and are 50% open. Um and then we also looked at a specific the specific the Juliet road fence and how that was put in because of the the area it's at and the screening. Um, we talked about the survey, uh, which we sent out. Um, as I said, it was it was five questions, neutally phrased, and it went out to 1876 households, residential units initially in the village. Um, that with a prepaid return envelope. The reason we went with uh not a digital format um was because the fact that um there was no way to one of the concerns brought up by multiple people of both the public and the board and staff were how to ensure that only one person was taking the the survey at a time. Um there are digital options that can do that but there were significant cost on it. Um, also in re in discussing it, we realized that half to twothirds of our community still pays their water bills by check or cash either through the mail or walking in. Um, so this amount of the community will not would be less likely to engage in a digital format. So that's why we we went we uh eventually sat down and looked at um decided on doing a a paper format. Um, and just kind of an aside, thank you to everybody that helped fold and stuff envelopes to send to people. Bob was here. He walked in to pay his water bill and I said, "Hey, do you want to help fold and stuff envelopes?" And he was uh we're very fortunate for his help. Not once, but also twice. He came back. I was kind of shocked about that to be honest with you. Um, bit of a glutton for punishment, but so we did that initially. We created a list. There is not a I'm going to go on to I'll touch on it a little bit later, but there is not a a list of all the residential properties in the village. There is nothing easy to find on it. We've gone

to like postal lists before and they're inaccurate because some people still have Lraange or or um Western Springs or I think there's like a Hinsdale. One person in in the village still has it. So, they're not accurate to the people that are in the village. We've not everybody on the village is on our water either. The northern parts of the village are not on our water. So we don't have that list of residences. So we created a list that best we could out of all those different ones and we settled on 1876 residential units which was pretty pretty equal to what we were looking at for the waste franchise as well very near it. Um I'll touch back on why that's important later. Anyways um talking about that we were we were basically after that meeting we started folding and stuffing and printing and going right away. Most the surveys got out between the 3d and fourth week of October. Our original deadline was going to be October 30th. Um, however, knowing with the mailing situation and the fact that we got them out late, we extended that to November 7th. Um, I'll come back to that a little bit here when I talked about the survey. Um, also at that meeting some additional findings we had where we discussed about whether or not there was any sort of uh crime deter any data that showed that fences deter crime. Um there was nothing that I could find that that staff could find that was unbiased on it. Um it definitely there is definitely evidence that fences make people feel safer, but there was nothing that we could say had a direct influence that made the fences made um less crime. Uh one thing that was also discussed was about wildlife movement, whether it be a coyotes or a gentleman that brought up deer and deer ticks and Lyme disease u moving through the yard. So that was something else we were looking at considering on seeing how that works. And um one of the last things that we were asked is that all our survey materials and every all our supporting evidence would be put up online on a landing page which we do have in the

fences page. So um looking at all of that uh that brought us to here where we're at for our public input and kind of going back to where we were in the process. Um once we finish public input, which is now going to extend through November, and I'll explain that in a minute, um the the commission will be uh looking over all the data, all the information, and we'll be creating a report in the next month or so, uh a draft report about recommendations to then send to the board in the next year for the board's consideration. So, that's where we're at in that process. We want but as Bob was saying um I wanted to go over all this not just to tell you everything we've done but so that um you can see all the the different areas that we considered because we really wanted to sit down and do it right and have it very well considered well organized and um not rushed because the times that it was done in the past they weren't done as well as it honestly could have been and it off and often that reason was why either they gave up on it or the outcome was not very um very good. So that's all I have for that item.

Yeah, very good. And um a lot of the content in this overview is based on public comment in the previous meeting. So uh I would encourage you uh when it's that time in today's meeting to speak up because uh ideas pop up that uh we're not going to be able to think about or just didn't come across it. So, um I would say that, you know, very well done in terms of public influence on what we should be looking at and um there's a lot of things that um are going to be very influential. Uh and it'll all be from your commentary and it'll be recorded here today. Um when we think about the uh survey results um we have something called a preliminary result meaning everything that's come in we've cataloged it and tabulated it. It's not a complete um census of all the uh mailings that we've taken um and and produced out there. So, what we're going to have to do here is um understand just like early polls, in fact, elections are going on today and you know 1% of the vote is in in some states and they've already declared the winner of you know like a governor. That's not going to be the case here. We're going to try to get uh all the surveys we can but following this new revised timeline and then uh we'll be able to present back what the final um tallies are and uh understand that in conjunction with your public comment developing to that report that we're going to get over to the board. Fair enough everyone on that. So the preliminary findings.

Okay. So, I wanted to uh I talked to you a bit about how the survey was designed. Um, you know, went sent to 1876 households. Um, we originally said it was going to be October 30th, but we got it out late, so we extended to November 7th as some of them have uh come back. We've gotten responses of people who saying that they haven't received it. Um, originally, we thought it was just a quirk of the mail and how we sent them out. We didn't send them out sequentially because we were just trying to get them out as fast as possible. and then going back and looking at the people who have responded that they hadn't re received the survey. We started checking the survey against our mailing list. Um unfortunately it came out that the mailing list which is also a combination of uh the parcel list from Cook County that shows every single parcel. Uh when the export from Cook County came by um it didn't come out complete. We thought it had was a complete parcel list. It was unfortunately not. um this this happens sometimes when you when you're extracting 1,800 plus uh units of information from it and and that came out. So um we've identified currently that there were basically two major areas that were that were not in the mailor and that was uh Indianwoods Drive, the town homes down there and then uh like the northern part of 45 acres. So, particularly along Apache, um, and a couple in Arrowhead Court. Um, all in all, that was 72 addresses that have been missed. What we've done since we've since we've looked at those, what we've done since then is have sent out those in the mail. One of them will be sent out tomorrow in the mail. Um, and uh, the reason we say this is if you haven't received it, please contact Sierra Village Hall. we'll check it against our mailer and if we and if we didn't mail one to you, we will mail one to you and that is why also the deadline has been extended to the end of November.

Um you know as I said so far we have 72 out of now um so it's a less than 3% error on that margin on that. Um but we don't want anyone to miss it. So if you haven't received it, please reach out to us at Village Hall. We are going to check it against our mailing list. If we do not have it, um, we will mail you one. If we do have it, we'll still reach out and respond to you and say to keep an eye on the mail because we've still been getting reports that people have just starting to get them. So, um, with that being said, uh, we're going over kind of the preliminary results. Um, as you can see, that's 589 have currently been returned to us. Out of that 1876, that's a little over 30%, I think it's 32% response rate currently on that. Um, so looking at the first question, whether or not we should allow fences, this is just reporting of data, by the way, to kind of we emphasize Bob's point. I'm just we haven't analyzed it. We haven't looked at it. This is just the raw reports back out to it on it. And so we won't do that analysis and anything until we get the final amounts in. Um, that's being because the fact that we don't want to jump out there. It's same kind of to use Bob's polling um analogy. We don't want to bias them coming in. So, um, please everybody send them back in. We are looking at them. Um, and we are tabulate them. We promise. Um, so, as I said before, just kind of a brief uh what we have so far. 589 at midday today. We're at 592. We received a few couple extra um but that didn't make it into this report here. Uh, for fences, do they do they believe that they should be allowed in residential areas? 324 respondents said yes. 227 respondents said no. 31 respondents said don't said they don't know and seven respondents didn't answer. Um I actually I'm going to pull it out and note that that actually the don't knows and no answers are actually very good to have in here

because it shows us that we're not just reaching the same people who are yes or no. We are getting people who don't I don't say don't care about the subject but they haven't really given it a huge amount of thought. Um, one extra point that I'll or I'll point out that 589 number is 200 more than received in the last fence survey in 2019 and it's actually about 250 more that people than that voted in the last election for board. Um, so it's a it's a pretty good number. We're we're also coming close to the the 2021 election, the board election when Mayor Amy Joe was elected. So, um it's a pretty good turnout for that. Uh continuing on, question two, um if yes, where should they be allowed in residential properties? Now, these are these all aren't going to add up for two reasons. One, some people can pick multiple front, back, side, and two, some people who actually voted no on the first one, then went and voted on this as well, where they would think they should be kind of a no, but if so, here. Um so, that was that came in there. And then some people who said yes actually didn't put anything down there at all either. So, uh, front yard, 89 respondents said they should be allowed in the front yard, 109 said the sideyard, 316 said the rear yard, and then 245 didn't respond to it, and they skipped it. um after that. So, uh question three, basically we were looking at uh whether or not regardless if you think that fences should be allowed um villagewide, what about uh along those major roads, Wolf Road has been a major concern, but also you Planefield Road is getting re uh reconstructed as well, even before Wolf Road. Um, Joliet Road is Joliet Road and, um, Willow Springs Road has also gotten a lot more work into it from it.

So, uh, in answering that question, 434 respondents said yes, they do believe that they should have some sort of fencing along those portions of the road. Um, 135 respondents said no, two respondents said they didn't know, and 18 didn't answer the question. And then finally looking at the demographic question of it in what general area do of the village do you live? 190 respondents came uh from west of Wolf Road 300 respondents came from east of Wolf Road. 54 from south of Joliet. So everything south of that of that and then uh 28 preferred not to answer and 16 didn't answer the question at all. Um, so that was what we have and I believe, and don't quote me on it, but I believe we have something like 125 open comments too as well. Um, we haven't looked at analyzing those at all because it's a lot of work to do. We haven't gotten there. So, uh, the last question those looking at it, um, that's kind of a spread we'd expect to see on that proportionately most people in the village live east of Wolf Road. um you know, west of Wolf Road, uh last I think I looked, there's only about 400ish households over on that side. So about half of Wolf, West of Wolf Road has responded, which would be expected as well. Uh south of Juliet, we don't have a whole lot of response um as of yet. Um that might just be because they don't feel the need to respond to it, but I couldn't really tell you on that one. It's also where the least there's not as much population in the village. And the other two answers, the prefer not to answer and no answer. I just I guess I felt more comfortable not answering. So,

okay. So, what we know about preliminary results are definitely a recap there for you. So, um it's raw data at this point. Uh really can't be analyzed. it's not cleansed to the point where we would want it to be to start making some conclusions or at least get some um influential um indicators of maybe how the village feels about fences one way or another. Um so what we're going to do given the fact that you've had our methodology purpose process and what we think is the outcome and now you have a glimpse of the uh survey results as they've come in and knowing that we have an extended timeline based on some u mailing address uh uh things that we caught along the way. We're uh at the point in time where we're going to um talk about um the public comment. Do we have to make any motions here to open that up?

Nope. This is going on between the input and

Okay. All right. I'm going to return this back to the front here. This is the signup sheet. and to kind of follow a nice little procedure to kind of expedite this process. Um, this is going this is now being broadcast. So, if you could just state your name and you don't have to give the address that you live at, but um, we certainly want to hear uh, all your ideas going forward. I don't know if it's going to be to the point where you're going to start asking us questions. We just like to be able to hear your commentary. uh at this point when we get further down in the process I think there'll be a lot of give and take that we'll um start asking questions and try to give you some responses back but right now we would just like to hear your commentary. So, um, the first one to signed up was Sandy. Sandy, there you are.

Sandy Hayes. I live on the west side. Okay, Sandy, we got you. The microphone. Can you press it to make sure it's on? Do you get the green light

on the top? I got it. Now it's on Sandy Hayes Westside. Um, it just it makes me so sad that people are thinking of destroying the looks of our village. It started with widening Wolf Road. That was number one. Now people want to put up fences. We moved here knowing that fences were not allowed. I had a dog. I had a young child. We survived. There were no electric fences. People have choices.

The wildlife that wanders through the rolling hills, looking across the street at my neighbors, all the open land will be destroyed with fences going up. I am totally opposed. Thank you.

Thank you, Sandy. Um, the next person that signed up is Frank. Hi, I'm Frank Lesh and I live at 6411 Indian Head Court, Indian Head Park, Illinois. Um I which is on the west side of Wolf Road. Um I built a house in 1978. So we've been there ever since. And um I've seen Wolf Road um which was just never really a country road, but it was nowhere near as as uh busy as it is now. Uh matter of fact, the speed limit was 45 miles an hour when we moved in. Then it dropped down to 40 and now it's been at 35 for a long time. Uh I agree that I don't I one of the things I like about Indian Park is the openness. I mean that's really nice. Uh I've I was a home inspector in my uh one of my professions and I would go to towns where there were fences and it looked like little forts all over the place and I it just doesn't look good. But that's my opinion. Um, however, uh, because of the increased traffic along Wolf Road over the years, which I understand because of all the development that's gone on over 45 years, um, it's understandable that there's going to be more traffic. Uh what's disheartening though to me is the past couple of years um the emergency vehicles that have gone by instead of just honking or turning their sirens on when they get near aacia or or they see a car coming 5:00 in the morning they're putting their sirens on the whole way down it's just and we back right up to Wolf Road. So it's it's really annoying to say the least. Um, so I I do agree that uh we should have fences along the busy roads just like uh you have on um old 66 on Juliet Road. U that made sense and back maybe 40 years ago it didn't make sense on Wooler Springs or Planefield or Wolf. I think it does now. So I would be in favor of that. Um I think that's about it. So thanks for doing this. This is great. I appreciate

it. Thank you Frank. Um good commentary there. Um, Joanna, if I got that right. Yeah. Hi, my name is Joanna Ferris. Um, I live on the west side. Um, I wish I'd kept my speech from the last time I was here. We already did this. Yes.

Um, in fact, you guys said since 1959, 15 times this topic has come up and been explored. So, my question to that, and I know you can't answer, um, but I'll put it out there for everybody, is why now? How many requests does it take to um kind of re-up the investigation or the exploration and bring this bring this all together to debate again? Does it is it just a few squeaky wheels? Is it really like the bulk of the uh the um residents here? And I think it's important that you're doing the survey. I think you guys did a great job making it less biased than the last time. But here we are. I mean that's like once every four to five years if you do the math that we are debating the same thing. And I I don't know. I think it's interesting because if we've done it this many times and people have said no defenses all along, why do we keep revisiting this? I bought here with my husband 13 years ago because we loved how organic and natural and open it was. We love looking out our backyard. We can see seven different properties looking out of our kitchen window, which we remodeled and expanded so we could look out and see all these yards. That's seven different fences we could be looking at. Totally against it. Um, in the survey, wildlife was brought up as a negative. Lyme disease was brought up, the coyotes. We don't see it that way. We love the wildlife in our area. Um, we take pictures of them. We like call each other the window. We get excited when we see it. Our friends in other neighborhoods, they don't get that, but they have fences. Um, uh, the fences on Juliet Road. I understand the need for security and and safety on your property. We have two dogs. We've had three dogs over our course here. We have two children. Um we we make do. We're doing okay. They've survived so far, right? Um and I just the idea of having another Juliet Road kind of unsightly, unwelcoming wall of fence really turns me off. And that's not what we bought into when we bought

into this neighborhood. Couple other things. I think I've called out most of these. Um, just we're done. We've done this before. How many more times are we going to do this? Should I save this speech for four more years from now? Thank you. Thank you. Lawrence, you're up. Good evening, everybody. I'm Lawrence Brandon. I live at 6500 Wolf Road. I'm one of the rare, I think, residents that on Wolf Road that did not get the survey. I just found out today. I think so. Yeah.

But, you know, I didn't get the get the survey, but I found out about it. So, I think I'm getting one ship, you know, mailed to me. But, I think along the perimeter of the properties on the on the highways or the state roads, I think that's a great idea. The fence that's on Juliet is kind of hideous. It's that old wooden fence, but if they did something like Oakbrook or Western Springs with a nice row iron fence, I would with some nice landscaping or greenscape, I think that would be beneficial for the for the community. But, um, and I've been here for 31 years. uh four kids, two dogs, and uh we've survived without fences, but everybody's got their opinion, and I we've survived. But if we could if we did an upgrade with the rod iron fences, make everything uniform for the community, I think that would look better than what's kind of the out there right now.

Understood. Yeah. Okay, that's about it. All right. Thanks. Thank you, Lawrence. I will say yes, you I printed out your uh survey and everything. Yeah, I saw it today. So, yes, I my apologies you didn't get that, but it's it'll be in the mail tomorrow for you. All right. Very good. Um Lori is the next person that signed up here. Lori Davis, 6482 Apache. I don't mind giving my address. I hope you'll all come and visit and see our backyards.

Okay. Um, I was the one on Friday who stirred up the pot in just making 10, 15, sending texts to ask people if they got the survey because we got a reminder I think on Thursday saying, "Make sure you get your survey in." And I was one of them who had not received it.

And 35 apparently from this 72 people um are very impacted by it. Um, our mayor said that it was on Apache Drive where I live, where my husband and I have lived for 47 years, raised our kids. Um, and Big Bear. So, these are people who were really affected, these 35 of these 72. And then I think the Indian Ridge is the other 36 units. Um, including Dale Helmquist, who's a realtor and feels we shouldn't have fences. I think you have a letter from her, Andre, to be read tonight, right? Um, a lot of people who live in Indian Head Park live in the country on a 3/4 acre lot. And I'm not sure that they even realize that our lots for we are in the 45 acres are considerably smaller. Um there is one lot in our neighborhood that is 7700 77 and35 square feet which is.17 of an acre and they're 3/4 of an acre. Um there's there's lots on Blackhawk that I know are three quarter and there might even be some bigger. We're 9,800 um square feet and we we are such so diverse geographically and I hope you'll take that into consideration and you have a lot of people who voted yes who live on the east side of Wolf Road. Have they ever been to the west side of Wolf Road? Looked at our yard, see what we're talking about. Just as we were guests at Wilshire Green at the 123 building facing east on the 7th floor on a patio, a very good friend and we could see the Chicago skyline. So, you know, Indian Head Park is very, very different and I hope you'll take that into consideration. And um

if we have fences along a busy street, and I can understand why people want them, who will pay for that? Because if it's not consistent and you have um 100 feet and then you have a gap of 100 feet and then you have fence for 200 feet. And I think that's something that has to be considered. And my other question is is that um as you're reviewing all the ordinances, are you going to pull on each and every ordinance? If this if you're polling on the fences because with so many people, a big population on the east side of Wolf Road who have probably never walked our yards to see what our issues are. I just think that's something to consider. and will you do that or the fence is just such a big deal because it is to us. We really don't want fences personally. Thank you. Thank you, Lori. Um Lori provides a great example for others that may come up here the the gap. Um it's it's good to call that out and we definitely take that into account. So, uh keep those ideas and comments coming. Um is there anyone else that would like to comment? please step up to the podium.

Yeah, I didn't sign the list. That's okay. You could come up.

Um I'm Tom Davis, same address, uh and so on. I um we've had friends in Western Springs, uh number of different places, and u when we go to some of their houses, they have small lots like we're on. And uh one in particular, we were sitting on their patio and they had they were in a situation where they had a right side fence uh a left side fence and then two adjoining. They were on some kind of a curve I think two other adjoining lots in the back. They had four different types of fences, different colors, different heights, different materials. And here's a a million-dollar house and you're sitting on the patio and it was just ugly. was just really really terrible. I think that's one of the things to consider uh in however this uh this goes if fences should at all be uh considered which I totally disagree with other than busy uh highway uh type areas uh you need to have some as part of the ordinance I think you need to have a stipulation that the fences have to be an even height the same materials uh as opposed to you know let's say the white plastic fences are stockade fences and other kinds of materials. Um, and I think if if it turns out that uh the vote goes in favor of fences, I think you should probably take the word park out of our city name because it'll destroy the park feature. Thanks.

Thank you, Tom. Good comments there. Um, anyone else? Go ahead. Hi, my name is Ken Demiki. I live at 6125 Timber Ridge Court. Um, I can appreciate the uh ambiance of the community uh that the park-like uh uh features and uh you know, I'm a runner. I I go for a run three times a week through the village. It's nice as I go up and down the hills looking at these houses and there's no obstruction. However, where I do live with my backyard against Wolf Road, I am concerned particularly with the expansion of the road, um the safety feature, um I I hear the that there is no evidence of crime uh prevention when there's a fence. If there's no evidence, there's no evidence. I I would feel better though if there is a fence along there. Um we did have a dog who uh met her maker running out onto Wolf Road. uh a few years back. So, um perhaps she'd still be with us if if there was a fence, but um I I think the you know, the point has made uh that you don't want all kinds of different fences, different colors, different sizes. Uh something uh pleasing to the eye like a long plane field behind timber trails or the same type of fence further uh west in Burr Ridge would be appropriate. Um, my primary concern is those busy roads. Thank you.

Thank you, Ken. Uh, next. Go ahead.

How you doing? Bobby Maguire, uh, 6313 Pontiac Drive. Um, I agree with a lot of various aspects of what everybody's saying here. I think everybody has great points from their perspective. uh the pro, you know, I think the the foundation here is that the important foundation is that everybody should be able to do what they want to do with their homes within reason. To your to your point about the stipulations on certain types of fencing and and whatever. I think you can do it to where certain fences they blend in with the natural landscape. So they're not gaudy, they're not obtrusive, they don't stand out, and they're not ugly. Like no chain link fences or anything like that. they think that would be a bad choice for especially for this area. Um, but again to the point is do what you want with with your home. It's your home within reason, right? Can't you can't let it go. You have to maintain it. Cut your grass, trim your bushes. If you want a fence, make it a nice fence. But if you don't want a fence, that that's totally cool. It's fair. Don't buy a fence, right? So, it's in my opinion, it's kind of that simple at the end of the day. Thank you.

Okay. And and your name again? Bobby. Bobby. Okay. Bobby, thank you. Yeah, good commentary there, Bobby. Thank you. Um, next, anyone. Can I say something else?

Sure, Xandy, come on up. When people move when people moved here, if they know fences aren't allowed, why are they making such a stink? I don't get it. I just don't get it. It's my house. I can do what I want. Ha. No. No fences. Have you moved here knowing no fences were allowed? Amen.

All right. Thank you, Sandy. other uh comments here. Feel free to step up to the podium. Okay. All right. We're going to read this uh email that we received.

This is from Dale Homequist. Uh they they sent it in by email. Um and I'm just going to read it verbatim. In keeping with the natural feel of our community, I do not want fences to be allowed. Over the years, I've sold homes to many residents because of the natural setting. To suddenly obstruct the landscape with fences is not what they invested in. In addition, fencing could be harmful to wildlife in the area. I don't believe having a fence or not is impacting sales prices. Any real estate appraiser will tell you that they do not use Western Springs comparables for Indian Head Park and vice versa. All right. Um, hearing that commentary, does that prompt anyone else to step up and make additional comments here? Okay. Any Go ahead.

Just one other thing. Um, I went to Ann Hajj who's um a um a realtor at at Properties and I have her email and I asked her what she thinks about fences. Is it going to increase our value, decrease our value?

She is a big salesperson in the area and she sold my daughter's home in Indian Head Park and then when our daughter bought her townhouse in Indian Head Park, she was um the realtor for that, too. And she said, you know, it just all depends on the people. Some want fences. if they can't give a fence in Indian Head Park, they go elsewhere. Other people move to Indian Head Park because they don't want a fence. So, that was her opinion. And I know you heard from Dale, and I don't know if other realtors have chimed in, but we're a unique community. And now we have comps where for years there were so few sales as when things didn't turn over. Um, and I think that was just the market. Uh, when the market tanked in 2007 or 2008, there really weren't comps. Now there are, and I think that's a big factor, um, as things have turned over. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, any other comments here? Did everyone get a chance to speak? Nothing. Good to go. Okay. Um, I think hearing the commentary and my fellow commissioners, we we there are some reoccurring themes that we're definitely taking into account. Um, we're hearing the same um responses and heads up and commentary. Although passionate, sometimes it's um, you know, there's difference of opinions and that's why we're having these type of forums here in conjunction with the survey. As far as the realators are concerned, if you have any realtor friends, you know, make sure that they might get involved. It'll help um some of us here forming our opinions. You could email you can email us here at the village. Um the easiest one would be the administration uh address which is just admin at Indian Head Park all one word. gov and just put in the title fences or anything like that. They'll know to send it over to me.

Probably could go to the website, too, and pick up an email address. Just as easy as that. Okay. All right. Um, knowing what we know and the process that's involved, uh, past commentary from previous meetings and this, uh, fresh new, u commentary today, uh, we're prepared co concurrent to the uh surveys that are coming in to start getting facts put in front of us and that's really we want to make some fact-based decisions uh and recommendations going forward developing that report that we talked about that will go to the board um for their considerations. Um I think it's important again to understand that um just to reiterate the the survey results although preliminary uh I wouldn't even take that into account in terms of an indicator um of uh public opinion right now. It's just too soon. So let us get more of those surveys in. We missed a lot of addresses as well. Um let's gather as many respondents as we can. And you could also do a community outreach as well. If you find your neighbor, um, ask them, did you fill out the survey? Did you send it in? I think it's really important to understand that your voice is really molding the, uh, the recommendation that's going to go forward to the board. And, um, I think is it Joanna? I think we we at least in my opinion um, we want to make sure that this is done the right way. um that we could reference back and maybe not repeat this every year or at least every four years in a cycle. But um we did get some commentary from residents enough for us to try to do this the right way

this time and get um some facts put together along with some transparency. So um that's that's our process and we'd like to be able to consider that. I got a question in the audience. Make a comment.

Sure. you want to come up here? Um, this has been kind of on my mind and nobody even mentioned it, but the group here that is very opposed to fences is maybe a smaller number of people yet you're asking the whole village and many of the people like Acacia um and town houses are other than the question of the busy roads, they're not affected because they're not going to have fences anyway because they're not allowed because of their homeowners uh regulations. It's a a smaller group yet this large group is having kind of a say in uh what happens with us and uh nobody mentioned that and I'm just bring that point up.

Uh name Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Nancy Chiserian. I do live on the west side. Uh 6387 Indian Head Court.

Okay. Thanks, Nancy. Um, very insightful as you start to look at some of the respondents, the the geographic layout of the village, um, the need for fencing, um, the wants of the few, um, versus the the needs of many. We have to look at that. So, you're right. Um and uh calling that out to understand that many of the folks that live in the village, they're not going to have fences anyway because of their HOAs or other ex circumstances. Um so yes, we're going to take that into account as well. Uh we didn't ask for addresses on the survey, but uh we do have some uh segmentation indicators of where the respondents are coming in. Uh, so we have a pretty good idea of um the wants and needs of those folks in particular areas of the village. So that's a good call out there. Any other good call outs, questions, comments? Good to go. Okay, next on our agenda, we don't have any old business or correspondence. We do have public comments, not related to offenses. Or I guess you could have do it related to fences if you wanted to. But um if there's any other public comments want to be provided.

I know this wouldn't cover everybody, but as far as getting people's addresses, why can't you use the vehicle stickers? I mean, I know everybody everybody doesn't have a car, but uh seems like you'd have a lot of stickers.

Yeah. So, we looked at that was actually one of the ones we cross cross referenced, but you're right. Not everybody has a car. So, then we were looking at them, too. Plus, it also is what if you have four cars? So now I'm looking at four address, four of the same address. So it was one of the ones we did look at. Um we are basically a bit crunched for time. We had to do it in a month. Um and it was a very busy month unfortunately. Um so that's why we didn't we weren't perfect on on that end of it. Um but like I said, if you if we missed you, please reach out to me. You know, I'll reference our mailer and if you didn't get it, I'll let you actually we'll let you know one way or another if you know we mailed it to you. just keep an eye on the mail or otherwise if we didn't get it to you, we'll get it out to you because we don't we don't want to, as I said, it's a very small amount. It's less. It's 3% or less, well within margin of error, but that doesn't matter to us. We want everyone to have their ability to put their voice in. Okay. Um the public input has been very important. um when you're in a process of putting a survey together, you try to look at who you're surveying and uh what influenced a lot of our questions and our process is the public comments that were already offered. Um I don't know if this commission would have ever thought of the idea that the astute gentleman in the red coat back there came up with with um utilities. What do you do with a utility area? Do you have to go around the utility? what is the the variance? Um, you could see there's a lot of caveats that we have to take into account if this were to move forward, but right now we're at the highest level just trying to get public opinion on exactly what we should or should not uh do. And once um those conclusions are made, we will have to do a deeper dive like you pointed out and understand exactly uh where the needs are and if it

were to go forward, how do we go about that in a uh reoccurring theme, a consistent look and feel of the fences. So, we hear your comments. We appreciate them. Thank you for that. Um that's it. Good to go. We need a motion in a second for adjournment, but yeah,

I move to adjourn. I'll second. All right. Um, let's get a voice vote. All in favor of uh closing down the meeting, say I. I. I. Opposed. All right. Thanks everyone for showing up today. Take care.