Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

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[music] [bell] [music] [bell] [music] all the uh May 4th, 2026 uh meeting of the Elgen Planning and Zoning Commission to order. Will staff please call the role. Commissioner Abali, yes. Commissioner Boske, present. Commissioner Gaska here. Commissioner Jones here.

Commissioner Olsen here. Commissioner Rubble here. And Chair Wilder here. We have Coral. All right. Um, I will now look for a motion to approve the minutes of the April 6th, 2026 meeting. Move to approve. Second. Staff, please call the role. Commissioner Olsen, yes. Commissioner Jones, yes. Commissioner Abuali, abstain. Commissioner Boske, yes. Commissioner Gasa, yes. Commissioner Rubble, yes. And Chair Wilder, yes. The minutes are approved six to zero with one abstension.

All right. Thank you. Uh welcome. Good evening everyone to the May 4th, 2026 meeting of the Elgen Planning and Zoning Commission. Uh tonight we're going to be hearing two petitions. Petition number 49-25 and 08-26. Um and so before we move on to the agenda, I'm just going to go briefly over how things are going to um go tonight and the role of the commission. Um so as a reminder, the planning and zoning commission is an advising uh body to city and recommending body to city council. Um so we review the development proposals and determine whether a proposal meets uh applicable standards of review. Um so tonight how the the process is going to work is that we'll first hear from city staff um on the petition followed by questions um by the commission that they have for staff. Then we'll hear uh we'll invite the applicant to come forward um and provide a brief overview of the proposal and then the commission will then ask questions um if they have any of the applicant and then after that we will open the hearing to the public for questions and comments. Um, and during that time, the public can come forward. Um, and they'll address questions directly to the commission. Um, we'll keep notes and staff keep notes as well and give staff as well as the applicant um a chance to uh respond um if if warranted or or necessary to any uh comments that come from the public. Um, at that point, the commission will then deliberate, vote, and pass its recommendations to city council. Um so at this time we'll move ahead with the agenda and um those of you wishing to testify tonight um can uh stand up and uh we'll have the administer oath to persons uh desiring to testify. So if you think you're going to speak tonight uh please stand up and uh take the oath from the court reporter.

You raise your right hand please. Do you soundly swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but truth. Thank you. All right, we will now move on to the first petition petition for tonight. Petition number 49-25. Thank you, Chair Wildermouth. Good evening, everyone. So, this first petition before you tonight, and again, we've provided the proof of required notices on this one. Thank you.

This is the application by Advantage Property Holdings LLC as the applicant and property owner is requesting approval of a plan development as a conditional use with departures from the Elgen Municipal Code to construct a new approximately 2,000 square foot one-story light industrial building with accessory parking for a property management company at the property commonly referred to as 990 St. Charles Street. So, as usual, we'll start with the general location of the subject property. This is a 10,431 square foot parcel that is located at the southwest corner of St. Charles Street, which is the Illinois Route 25 and Hammond Avenue. It is owned CI Commercial Industrial District, and it's also part of the Ark Arterial Road Corridor Overlay District. As you can see, the properties to the west and south have the same color over them. They are also zone CI, commercial industrial. To the west is a one-story light industrial building that is home to a water treatment uh uh company. To the south is a property that's owned by the applicant that is also improved. The one-story light industrial building that's that's home to a special trade contractor, a plumbing company. And to the north and to the east, as you can see, are uh properties with the yellow color. Those are zoned residential RC3. They include single family residences. Uh here's a photograph of the existing property lower right and then the bird's eye view in the top left. The property is improved. The single family home or or a single family residence that was formerly occupied um but it's currently vacant. It's been vacant for several years. and a small parking lot that is used in conjunction with the property to

the south that's like I said also owned by the by the applicant. So the applicant is requesting approval of a planned development as a conditional use to construct a new approximately 2,000 foot light industrial building on the subject property with a small parking lot adjacent to the west. This will function as its own separate property from the one to the south. Uh this will serve the company's commercial property management services business operations. The building is properly situated uh along the east side of the property uh closest to St. Charles Street and then with the parking lot sort of hidden in the back behind the building. The access to the property is from Hammond Avenue. It's a a full access driveway. It's generally in the same location as the driveway for the former single family home. Uh the parking lot has four stalls which meet the parking requirement and I'll get to that in a second. Um the proposed building would include a 256 foot office and the the remainder of the property would be a primarily small warehouse. The building would include two overhead garage doors facing the parking lot that's on the west side of the building. and the building would be used primarily for storage of equipment and materials of the company. The applicant is not proposing uh any outside storage and none would be permitted. All business activities uh would be conducted during the normal business hours and the company expects to have approximately four to five employees. Here is the proposed floor plan on the left. Um you can see the two overhead garage doors facing the west side and then the main entrance. Um and then the proposed elevations of the building. The building is uh designed to resemble historic

brick warehouses. It also includes a small uh a gentle sloping metal roof. All windows will be black and as well as the garage doors to complement the sort of a yellowish or yellowish uh color of the brick. Here is the proposed landscape plan um that would comply with all landscaping requirements. The proposal includes this plan includes three trees. Sounds like they're going to be installing one additional tree um as we get closer to the permit stage. Other site improvements include the uh installation of the new sidewalk, public sidewalk along Hammond Avenue and then a refuge collection area in the southwest corner of the property that would be enclosed with a 6ft high masonry wall that would match the masonry on the building. This business in this building is required to provide one and a half parking spaces per employee and with five employees the proposal or the development is required to have three parking spaces. With four stalls proposed this would satisfy the parking requirement. Now the proposal does not satisfy couple setback site design requirements and that's why the applicant is requesting the approval of the plan development. That's why they're here. So the the first thing is the the required street setback on this property is 25 feet from the north and from the east property line. Uh as you can see on the site plan, the building is situated and it's the property is just too small uh even for a small 2,000 foot building. Uh the proposed building would be about 13 ft from the north property line and then approximately 21 feet from the east property line uh which is actually in the middle of St. Charles Street. Um the actual right ofway easement is closer to the building about three feet in this at the at the closest point about 14 feet at the northeast corner of

the building. And then the second departure is the uh departure from the required vehicle use area interior setback. Uh per code minimum sixoot setback is required for the park for the parking lot from the south and from the west property line. As you can see, the closest point is 3 ft from the west property line and about 4 feet to the south property line. Still, those setbacks are adequate enough to accommodate the the required landscaping along the perimeter of the parking lot. The the proposal is required to meet the standards for planned developments and standards for conditional use. Our overview and analysis of the standards is in the packet. We found that all applicable standards are satisfied and therefore staff recommends approval subject to the conditions in the packet and I'll mention a couple. One is that no outdoor storage would be allowed um on the outside. They're not proposing any but there would be a condition just to make that clear. And then the second one is that um the the developer will not be objecting to any potential future easements along the the north and the east property line if the city does any utilities in the area. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. The applicants team is here as well and address the commission.

Thank you. Um I will start on my right with Commissioner Gaska. Any questions for staff? No questions. Commissioner Olsen. No questions. Commissioner Abalia, I'm sure I just didn't hear it, but can you say the parking five employees, how many are required? Uh, three. What per? It's one and a half per employee. One and a half per employee. Excuse me. One stall per one and a half employees. Okay. Because you then I didn't hear wrong. You said that the first time, too. I just wanted to make sure. All right. Thank you. Commissioner Jones, no questions. Thank you. Commissioner Bosque,

no questions. Commissioner Rubal. Hi. Yes. Um the uh I have a question um regarding the roadway easement. How wide does that again? Did I I could I didn't make that out. Which roadway easement? Uh you have roadway What does that say? Roadway purpose easement. The along the east property line. Yes.

There's an existing one that essentially the goes back to the 1930s, I believe. I'm not sure what the full width of that is. Uh the proposed setback is about three feet from that easement line, but it's about 21 ft to the actual property line. So, the building is kind of at an the road is at an angle as you can see. So, the closest point the building will be about 3 feet from the uh from that easement and about 14 feet on the top corner. Okay. So then the that's from the building to that angled line, right? Correct. And then what is that next section over this thing? Is it the roadway?

Well, so so this is the right of way. Yeah, this is the right of way easement line. So from this point to the east is the right of way of the state of Illinois for the St. Charles Street. So they have the sidewalk within the right of way, obviously the curb of the road, and then here's the road. the property actually goes into the middle generally in the middle of the road and it's not uncommon that back in the day that uh I do just acquired rights which is the right of way easements rather than full ownership of the property as it may be applicable in more newer developments.

Okay. And then um the other question is the parking spaces because that's a little confusing. So it's it's one parking space per one and a half people. Correct. So if you have five, your requirement is three. Correct. You're only going to have one extra one over the requirement. If you have five employees, wouldn't you need

Well, we're that's if the the assumption is that every employee would would drive on their own. That that's may or may not be accurate. Um which is why the code does not require one stall for each employee and the number of employees kind of fluctuates. So to kind of accommodate for these unknowns, the general requirement is that these um sort of light industrial developments require one stall for one and a half employees. So that not one that it wouldn't make sense to require one parking space for each employee. There are different shifts, different employees come and go at different times. Um so based on many studies over the years that has been determined that um one and a half per employee one per one and a half employee is is adequate.

Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. I don't have any questions for staff. Um we'll invite the applicant to come forward um and provide any overview um anything you'd like to add to what staff presented. And uh please state your name and spell it for the court reporter and your address. Yeah, it's uh Josh Mullins and uh the address of the building or my personal address. Um either [snorts]

Okay. 990 St. Charles Street. Um our our plan is we we've owned this house for a while and uh our kind of our plan was always to, you know, kind of just tear it down and put something nice there. Um it'll be our our building. We run uh we develop uh industrial properties and uh we just wanted a place to operate that wasn't our building to the south because that's a different business that kind of operates pretty well right now. That's pretty much all I got. Sounds good. Thank you. All right. Um if you want to stay up, I'm gonna go through and see if uh any commissioners have questions. I'll start with Commissioner Rubel.

Hi. Um, okay. So, I just wanted to ask the question again about the parking. So, do you anticipate any uh off streetet parking? And then that would be on Hammond, correct? So, it's just going to be the two of us working there. No, we we don't we don't uh think there's going to be any on street parking. Okay. I think, you know, our grandest of endeavors will require maybe an additional one person. Okay. And then the other question is um the picture of the building with the brick. Will it have that detail on the top? Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Commissioner Buska, no questions. Commissioner Jones,

no questions. But I like the design of the building. I think that'll fit in with a lot of those buildings over there starting to kind of, you know, we want to do something cool. It'll be much more attractive than than some of the others. So, thank you for that. Looks great. Commissioner Wally, no questions. Thank you, Commissioner Olsen. No questions. Commissioner Gaska, no questions. And I don't have any questions. Very good. No.

Um, and now I will open the public comment portion of the hearing. If there's any members of the public that wish to comment. All right. Um, I will close the public comment portion of the hearing and look to city staff for any final uh thoughts. Nothing else to add. Staff recommends approval subject to the conditions of the packet. Sounds great. I will look to the commission for a motion. I move to recommend that city council approve petition 49-25 subject to the conditions outlined within our packet and to adopt as the findings of the commission those findings also provided within our packet.

Second. and staff, please call the role. Commissioner Olsen, yes. Commissioner Jones, yes. Commissioner Abu Ali, yes. Commissioner Bowske, yes. Commissioner Gasca, yes. Commissioner Rubal, yes. And Chairman Wilder, yes. Motion's approved. Seven to zero. Thank you. All right. Continue working with staff. Thanks so much for coming tonight. Appreciate it. And best of luck. I know. Yeah, you used to come over to the old my old house and uh do Yeah. So, yeah, I know. I recognize the name.

Yeah, you too. Uh, we digress. Um, we'll move on to petition 08-26. Okay. Moving right along. So for this petition, since this is a final plat, there have been no notices provided, but this is the application uh by Cal Atlantic Group LLC as the applicant and Wade Light as the property owner. We're requesting approval of the final plat subdivision for the next phase unit 4A within Ponds of Stony Creek subdivision that's located generally at 4,01 McDonald Road. So again, we'll start with the general location. So Ponds of Sub uh Ponds of Stony Creek subdivision is a subdivision approximately 278 acres. It is on the far west side of Elgen. It is approximately 2.3 miles west of Randall Road on the south side of McDonald Road. It was annexed and zoned for residential subdivision back in 2006. And that um approval was amended twice. uh first in 2009 and then second time in 2018. The approved subdivision or should say subdivision was approved for a total of 504 single family residences and two about 5 acre parks. To date, the city has approved units one, two, and three with a total of 358 single family lots out of 504. and a majority of those homes uh have been completed and many others are under construction. The the the first three phases are are getting close to

completion. So the the developer Lenar is requesting approval of the final plat for the next phase that would be the unit 4A. Now, unit 4A is consistent with the preliminary plat that was approved in 2018 and it includes a total of 141 lots. 140 of those would be buildable. Uh this is the general location of the unit 4 which is in the south end of the subdivision and then on the right hand side are the two photographs of a typical street within the subdivision. Here is the final plat for for unit 4A. Again, it includes total of 141 lots, but 140 are buildable. One lot that is the parcel 16 would be encumbered by a public utility and drainage easement. That lot is right here because it's located in the flood plane. Uh there are also five other lots next to that that are currently in the flood plane. So they're not part of this unit 4A. Uh once the grading is completed of the subdivision, the applicant intends to um submit an application for the amendment to the official flood maps so that those lots are then no longer in the flood plane and they would be buildable and then those five lots would be platted separately probably under 4B when all that work is done. Uh so overall with the elimination of parcel 16, the subdivision will have a total of 503 single family lots. Uh unit 4A is very similar to the other units. Most lots are 80 ft wide. They range from 10,680 ft to 18,756 ft.

Um the developer would build the same 10 model home plans as were that have been approved for the previous phases. Each model includes multiple elevations. All homes uh feature hardyboard siding. So there will be no vinyl or aluminum siding. Uh each home has a two or three car attached garage. There are one foot eaves on all sides of each home. There also multiple windows on each side of each home. The uh particularly the front elevations are well articulated that include uh some masonry on most models and most models include a 6ft deep front porch. The model home plans uh range from uh 2,171 square ft to 3,800 square ft in floor area. Uh this unit also includes the second neighborhood park for the subdivision that will be also five acres and there are also um planned extension of the multi-purpose path the bike trails throughout the subdivision. There are uh so again this final plat for unit 4A is in substantial conformance with the prelim preliminary plat that was approved in 2018 and therefore staff recommends approval subject to the conditions in the packet and those are pretty standard conditions nothing to really highlight with that I'm happy to answer any questions again the applicant is here as well to address the commission

sounds good I will Start on my immediate right with Commissioner Wallally. I'm not sure if it's a staff question or a petitioner, but I noticed that street signs don't come up for quite some time in that subdivision or maybe most new construction subdivisions. Is that a city thing or is it have to do with the builder? Do you mean where the first street sign is located as you enter into the subdivision or No, inside like something's located on a certain street, but that street sign is not there like it's

it just takes a while for those street signs to come in, like quite a while. So, is that a city thing, John? Uh well the developer is in charge of installing street signs and so typically uh they are the last part to be installed. That is correct. So so in this so even though as you can see on the aerial most of the homes in the previous units have been completed. The city has not accepted any of the public improvements. That means that that we have not taken over ownership of the roadways, sidewalks and things like that which means that they haven't been completed. So since that's the last item that's usually completed in the subdivision, I would suspect that the street signs are then the last item that goes in there before the city would accept that subdivision. So but and usually there they have to be at the intersections. Um and so before we would take it over, everything has to be installed.

Okay. On that same note, this subdivision also has centralized mailboxes. Again, is that a USPS thing? Is that a That's a very good question. I've noticed that myself, but I've never wondered enough to and I think the applicant can answer that'll but it's not a city requirement, nor do we care where the mailboxes are. Thank you. You're welcome. Commissioner Olsson, no questions. Thank you. Commissioner Gaska, no questions. Commissioner Jones, thanks to Mayor, can you circle back to the flood plane and the I'm sorry, how many pieces how many parcels were in there

and what are the remediation? So, it's going to be part of the grading of the of the property that So, ultim currently these lots here that are excluded from this 4A subdivision, there's three here and two here, they're excluded from the from this final plat because they're affected by the flood plane. So once they complete the grading and engineering of the of the subdivision, then the sort of the the boundary of the flood plane will be adjusted, but they have to apply to Army Corps, I believe, to officially amend the um the flood map boundaries. And once that is officially done, they can then file for the final plat. And so there will be hopefully in the near future, there will be another final plat application just for these five lots, uh which will be buildable lots. The parcel 16 here that I'm circling will remain uh I think at least partially in the flood plane. So that one will not be buildable. That's title is parcel 16.

And there's no concern that once you start messing around so close to a flood plane, all the other properties in that subdivision will be impacted. That's probably a question for their engineers, but uh at the end of the day, if something is not in a flood plane, it's not in a flood plane. But these are currently in a flood plane. That's correct. Okay. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Commissioner Boske, no questions. Commissioner Rubble, no questions. All right. Well, I invite the applicant to come forward.

Good evening, uh, commissioners. My name is Dave Lawler. Um, I don't she's not here, so I'm not going to go there. I'm going to address, uh, we just wanted to to say thank you for hearing our application. U, we're excited to complete this subdivision. It's been um a good subdivision for LAR. We have a lot of happy customers. We've delivered a lot of nice homes. We feel like the uh subdivision has been [clears throat] has been great and we want to finish it off uh kind of in the same fashion that we started it. So, if you guys have any questions at all, I would be more than happy to answer uh any of those. I'll start on my right with Commissioner Wallally.

Yeah, I mean I guess to answer maybe the mailboxes. I think the street sign is pretty much a city thing and been answered, but do the centralized mailboxes. So, we actually request uh the postmaster and the postmaster is the one that decides what we're going to do in mailboxes, whether they're going to be single or CBUS and that's what they decided and that's who we follow. Dave, can you speak to the microphone, please?

Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Um so we consult with the postmaster and the postmaster then tells us what we can do and generally nowadays the postmaster is always looking for CVUs because it's an efficiency uh even in large estate style single family homes we see that uh just like we would in a town home situation because they they sort of dictate that. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Um and then I will go to Commissioner Jones. So the flood plane there um can you help me. Can you walk me through that process? How does that look when you're applying to get out? You know, you're

absolutely flood. Not very technical. If we need to get very technical, we can we can tap our engineer. But essentially, currently, right now, FEMA has recognized that our elevation is in flood plane. Okay. So, what we're going to have to do is we're gonna have to mass grade that site. New map or old map? Flood. The current map. Current map. So currently right now as the grade sits as the ground sits that is below the flood plane right that ground. Okay. So we're going to come and develop this site. We're going to move all this dirt around to make the site work. Oh yeah. No I don't mean the grading. I mean how does that process like how does that process look when you're looking to pull a property out of a flood plan?

Okay. So right now it's currently in. So what we're going to do and we have already applied for a Clomar which is a conditional letter of map revision that says hey FEMA this is what we're going to do okay this is our proposed plan they look at it they approve it that'll essentially that gives us the okay to then do that work then once that work is complete we reshoot everything with our surveyors submit that uh LOMAR a letter of map revision to FEMA FEMA goes through it and approves it and now that out of the flood plane. All regulated through FEMA.

How close is the distance then to the next area of the flood plane of this subdivision?

So Mark Paul with Manhart Consulting. Um the only requirement is that the flood plane is outside. I mean even a lot a lot of cities the flood plane can be on your lot. You just need additional insurance for it. Um I think Elgen might differ a little bit in that. I think they don't require they require flood plane to not be on the lot to even get it platted. which is why we're dropping those five lots from unit 4A. Um, but like like Dave was saying, once the the letter of map provision is complete, then those lots can be occupied with the flood plane off of their lot and the flood plane would only be in the outlot areas. Then okay, thank you. Um, Commissioner Olsen, no questions. Thank you.

Commissioner Buske, uh, no questions. Commissioner Gaska, no questions. Commissioner Rubel, hi. Yes, I have a question. Um, so in the previous uh phases um you had some problems, you have some problems with um the customers complaining about the um aprons and the sidewalks. before you move forward on this next phase, have those been addressed and will they be considered with the new

So, from my understanding uh from my understanding, all of those uh residents that have approach LAR are still currently within their warranty period and typically when it comes to the concrete aprons, we do that at the 11 month, we do that the last uh sort of the end to allow any of that cracking to continue to happen on any sort of settlement. So, we fix it once. Uh so, typically that's where we sit. I believe that most people through this winter have had experiences with those apron issues have come to our customer service, logged a ticket that exists and doesn't get closed out until they sign off and that work's complete. Okay. So, it wasn't it was just um what I mean just basic issues like warranty issues. It wasn't like a design.

No. So, what happens unfortunately with concrete and salt doesn't like each other. Yes. Uh and unfortunately it packs up. it sits on those aprons and it and it does a number to the new concrete. And generally that spalling what we're seeing there is is just kind of the popping of the top layer of concrete. That's that's the remediation as you remove and replace. Okay. In the future, you know, you try to keep as much salt off of that new fresh concrete as possible. Okay. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't like a a a layout issue. Okay. Thank you. All right. We're good. Thank you. No more questions from And I don't have any questions. So, no more questions. You can go back to your seats. Thanks.

Thank you. All right. I will now open this portion to public comment. If there's any public that wish to comment, seeing no public, we will close the uh public comment portion. Um and I will look to city staff for any other final thoughts. No other final thoughts. Staff recommends approval. subject to conditions. All right. I will accept a motion from the commission.

I move to recommend that city council approve petition 0826 uh subject to the conditions outlined within our packet and to adopt as the findings of the commission. Those findings also provided in our packet. Second. Can staff please call the role? Commissioner Abuali. Yes. Commissioner Rubel, yes. Commissioner Boske, yes. Commissioner Gaska, yes. Commissioner Jones, yes. With concerns about water having to go somewhere. Commissioner Olsen, yes. And Chairman Wilder, yes. Motion is approved. 720 to zero.

All right. Thank you. Thank you for coming tonight and continue working with city staff. No problem. All right, we will now go on to other business from staff. All right. Uh, public comment. Is there any public comment? Seeing none, uh, back over to you, Demir, for summary of pending development applications.

I don't think there's anything too overly exciting. the the gas station and the text amendment that were at the last planning and zoning commission meeting are going to city council next week for consideration. Uh there has been some movement with the uh the Glenn subdivision if I haven't mentioned that at the last meeting. Uh I think that's finally getting some final engineering approval. So that will be um hopefully being scheduled for the city council final approval and they can start construction of the homes. Um and I and then of course the Waterford subdivision the the last two neighborhoods are also moving quite along. So that will be at the the ne but probably if not in the next one of the one of the next few planning and zoning commission meetings. Um we have a new application from Wayside Cross Ministries that's also going to be probably scheduled the next month. And u yeah I think that's about it unless there's any questions. All right. Seeing none, I will uh accept a motion for adjournment.

I move to adjourn. Second. Staff, please call the role. Commissioner Awali, yes. Commissioner Jones, yes. Commissioner Boske, yes. Commissioner Gasca, yes. Commissioner Olsen, yes. Commissioner Rubel, yes. and Chairman Wilder. Yes. Approved seven to zero. We're adjourned. [music]