Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

calling uh planning commission October 7th, 2025 uh meeting to order. Uh can we begin with a roll call of attendees? Uh Commissioner Tantiel, Commissioner Hatkkey present. Commissioner Lucenti Commissioner Gormley Barnes here and chairman Greg Scovich present. Everybody could stand for 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. Excellent. Moving on down the agenda, we have some minutes to approve from September meeting in which we heard an ordinance for a garage conversion to a living space and then a documented narrative about our discussion, our ongoing discussion about uh fences. I trust everybody had time to review. If you didn't, take a minute. Once you feel it's in a form that you might be able to motion or or suggest corrections, I would entertain them. Andre, thanks a ton for uh all your uh the due diligence that you've compiled for us. Looks like we've got a a a summary of some past activities uh from a subcommittee from the that the uh past administration organized. It looks like we've got a comparison which was extremely helpful of some adjacent communities. Um, and then also looks like we have a draft form of a survey that uh we should probably talk about tonight. So, um, we've spent a lot of time to date on the subject. It looks like we've got a couple couple more conversations ahead of us. Um, I don't know that uh tonight's conversation will be as ex as

exhaustive as the uh past conversations. I think settling on a survey would be a great objective for tonight and uh perhaps having the results of that survey for us to discuss at our next meeting um and trigger some uh more thoughtful dialogue. But Andre, why don't you uh tee us up for all the documentation that you put in front of us and then let us know if you have a different agenda for the agenda.

Uh no, that's about what we were going to go through. Um as you note that, uh we've been continuing to provide um additional background information um on the uh this issue. uh one of the things that we were directed to do and we've been doing very well is a comprehensive overview of it. So, one of the more um requested items that we worked on um staff from our spec particularly our intern Brandon Fleer um he did a comparison of 14 communities and their various fence code regulations. So, this will this provides a pretty good clean he did really good job on it um for some reason. and the spacing and the formatting got really weird there. But um you know his first page in the memo is a summary the narrative summary of the uh the next page which is the matrix that shows the different types of uh setbacks, heights, different um different types of code. And there are some if you're looking at the PDF uh that I sent out there are hyperlinks in there. He uses a lot of hyperlinks which is nice. So you can click on them and that but you can see that there there generally is a there generally is they kind of settle between four and six feet tall and that you know uh where they are depends on height but more often than not they're open they're 50% open. Um so um that's something that could you know when we're looking at that and we're looking at the types of what the surrounding community characteristics are is a good um is a good reference for it. And you know there there's not a huge amount of that's what I'm looking for here. There there's there's a very large amount of variation in direct correlation to what the uh community members feel as the character of it. Now once again materials most of them ban things like barb wire, electric fence or anything that you know causes damages to humans. Um one of the unique ones is Riverside

because Riverside is a historic at least most of it is historic Mstead plan. So they tend to have a few a few more um uh codes related to that. So, um, like I said, they're very, they're all tend to be very kind of unique, um, and very towards the community character that they're looking at. And of these, these are the ones that, uh, you know, of the 14 or so that we looked at, um, oh, I apologize. I want to highlight this. We also highlighted, I asked Brandon to look at Cook County, um, as well because specifically that, you know, we have a very large amount of unincorporated Cook County adjacent to us. And so getting an idea of what Cook County allows for regulations for fencing was also important. Um but otherwise the only one in that matrix that doesn't allow them is currently is us um on that. So um

on the matrix the top line or the top row is that actually Lraange. I'm looking at this again because I noticed Lraange was not listed here.

That might be Lrange actually. Like and I'm looking at this again and like this is not the format that I was reading on it. So this might have gotten messed up in in transit for going from Google Docs to Word too that I'll double check on that and we'll get a revised copy out on it. Um yeah, cuz I looked at that again. I'm like, "Wait a minute. It said 6 feet and 4 feet." I'm pretty sure that was Lrange had um cuz we have Lrange Park on there. But um anyway, so uh I'll review that again. We'll we'll go back in there and double check on it. See if see see what some of the spacing is on it. But the narrative up top there also has that kind of a summary of it. I think it's just that one line that that one cell looked like maybe it wasn't

got transpose somewhere. Great thing. I said I'll get the revision of that. But you can you can like said just kind of looking at the analysis and that was really what I wanted to was have him look at was the analysis of what and summarize what exactly all the different pieces were and um you know what kind of the the characteristics were and I said they they vary a lot. So that's that for the fence matrix. Was there anything else on that you wanted to have questions that I could possibly answer? Compliments to Brandon. This is uh very helpful. A lot of due diligence, a lot of research. I I try to get him to stay to give the presentation for it. I was going to say in a room.

He uh he he apparently has class on Tuesday nights or something. Grad students, right? Um um one question. Yeah. So only the first one calls out requirement of permits. Do they all require permits? Yeah. Okay. Everything's a building. Everything would be required a building permit for it because they're all building structures. So, is there any other questions on that that I can answer?

Not for me.

Okay. Um, well then with the commission, I'll keep going on that. So, after that, one of the things that we were tasked for as well was to review the committee meeting minutes for the uh shed and fence committee meeting. And um outside of one of these meetings, they're actually which was the October 27th, these were actually never um created and or approved. So you get to see them pretty much hot off the presses. Uh we did we did not find a a recording or any sort of minutes or not taking for the November meeting on that. So that is lost to the ether unfortunately. Um the December meeting did have a uh a brief recap on it. It was very very brief. Um but these are the minutes that we were required that we were tasked with looking at and doing. Um these were also done by Brandon. I uh found the um the Facebook live versions of it and pulled it off the internet, gave him the transcript and said, "Here you go. Please get these done." So um this was what the discussions were on for that one. Um as some people who were on on that committee who might be present here um might note that it was very short. It was 4 months and within two months they basically tossed the issue of fences and focus mostly on sheds. Um, which from my just listening to Brandon having tori transcribe the minutes seem to have some um that was not what some committee members considered wanted. But here here they are. Here are the minutes on it. And as I've stated at the beginning uh when we were when we started talking about reviewing fences is that this seemed to follow a very similar pattern to most the times when this has been reviewed in the community which was uh essentially

it started the discussion got very you know people got very invested in discussion it got very passionate and they kind of just walked away from it because it seems like it was too much work and they didn't want to deal with it. um which is something why the you know we we're going through this now and we're doing this in a very measured manner. Um so please review those. Um I don't think there's anything in there that you'll be surprised about. A lot of the discussion revolves around the same type of things that we were discussing already. Uh but it was also part of the resolution that was passed by the board that we have to review these

that that committee the out one of the outcomes of that committee was what we went through a couple years ago right with all the people who have fences being asked to come in for variances that happened after yeah that was basically the the off ramp that they did was basically everyone who wanted to shed an offense could come in or had a shed an offense

could come in and ask for a special use and most of them were approved is essentially what it came down to. Um yeah. Uh so those are the minutes of that. As you can see that you know as time went on they just didn't meetings were not really as productive as they could have been but um that was that. So uh the last thing was actually one of the things I did gave you was a handout cuz I didn't have time to fully review it and before the commission um was where is it? this documentation, this memo, um, and I apologize I didn't actually get down to be able to critique it for grammar. So, uh, was that, uh, this historical fence discussion document summary, as I've stated before, um, I've subjected poor Brandon to going through every single, uh, board meeting minute and planning commission from 1993 to see the word fences and to see what the words fences were about. Um, luckily, we have AI to help with that nowadays. Um so but I it still took him a very significant amount of time. So once again I want to give him kudos for sticking through that because that was rough. Um and basically looking through it, we basically summarize the history from when the village was created to couple years ago. Um what the discussions on were with fences. What were the reasonings? What were the what basically was summarized has happened and um I'll have to send you the PDF but once again these things that are in blue actually link down to them further down. You can see on this um when he was talking when we we see very common the very common comments we see fences fences that were for reasons that they were denied or excuse me they were allowed um were basically that they were legally non-conforming or they were grandfathered in at a point um you know pools exist you know pools were one for a while before we just made them naturally uh allowed um special the special needs and that he's referring to

as the reasonable accommodations. Um, and then perimeters along busy roadways and other, you know, non-residential, so Joliet Road and, uh, Brookside where they currently exist. Um, he also puts a very good a very good u summary about the themes. You know, nothing's going to jump out here that you've never heard before, but about safety, privacy, reasonable accommodation of course. Um, but also, you know, comments about, you know, animals, making sure that they're able to have a fenced in yard so they can let the animals out. Um but also then uh a lot of it was discussion was maintaining the village character. Um he has a nice little timeline down here showing you uh kind of the major actions that happened at certain points in time. Um he has the general statistics in the back as well. We've kind of covered that already. Um but it's to note here what we didn't cover was that uh he noted here fences have been discussed with no actions on the requests 10 times in Indian Head Park history. So there are you know with they've been requested 15 times all residential and um you know at least another 10 times almost twothirds the amount of times as well nothing happened on them after that. Um what we just spoke about was the summary of it but he breaks it down here in those kind of categories that he was talking about. you know, those that were grandfathered in. Um, 1964, they were allowed if they were had fences to keep the fence, but then after 10 years, they were supposed to get rid of them. Uh, we talked about the pool fences, which we've gone over before, the special needs or the reasonable accommodations, which we spoke about before. Um, you know, the perimeters along busy roadways or cut through traffic was something that, um, we've heard before as well. Um, he kind of summarizes that. Um and uh you know once again we kind of hear about it and this is also when Wolf Road started getting busier when Juliet Road was still Route 66 before it became

just completely Juliet Road. Um and the types of sort of like that. Um you know and also of course with foot traffic coming through as well. So you can kind of see he outlines which the properties had them and what they were either approved or denied on. Um and then like I said and he elaborates a little bit more on the safety. So themes safety, you know, we're talking about children or property damage. Nothing unusual there. Um he notes that this it usually actually led to an approval when it came up during board meetings. Uh that was much in the earlier time before the uh plan commission really started getting the meats of that or we or they didn't even have a plan commission at that point. Um privacy concerns were usually denied by the board with the with the response of plant barrier screening of bushes and trees. the reasonable accommodations um were made were made twice in history. Uh both times it was approved. One time it was approved after a lawsuit. Um you know, most common reason for denial. Stop me if you've heard this before. Uh maintaining the village character was one most people like to see that kind of more rural bolic less suburban feel of it. And then of course always animals and keeping animals in a yard um was another very common reason. Um but even though it's come up often it was never the requests were never moved or it wasn't actually a request on it. It was more of a reason for having them. So um those are the kind of background information uh that provided for it that eventually will also be in our reports as well uh to the board of the different reasoning. Like I said, nothing this committee or excuse me, this commission or anyone probably has never heard before, but we wanted to provide that in a more empirical manner than previously. So I have I'll take any questions on those if you have them.

I have a couple questions. In the code, we've noted a couple times there's this kind of restrictive provision, but it's in there to allow for a very small enclosure attached to your house, like 75 square feet maximum or something. Correct. Are is there no record of how many times that's been requested or approved just because that's allowed by right? As long as someone comes in and just says, I just want to do this little I haven't

8 by8 area. Does that just get approved? Yeah, that would just be a building permit and got approval. Um, I have noted there was a couple times in the more in-depth document where we just basically create took excerpts from every single one of the minutes. We pulled them out and put them in there and then that's what Brandon then analyzed and narrative for. Um, that did get mentioned quite a few times and it often comes up when someone um would ask about having a fence for dogs. They would say, "Well, you're allowed to have this enclosure off the house." Mhm. Um I have not we don't know how many places in the village someone has actually gone ahead and and I've not seen a per building permit with it. Um most likely because if they have it, it's just they put it up in the backyard. So, right.

Um and then my other question is with the fences that were put up on the in the rear yards of the houses that back up to Juliet Road. Mhm. When did that happen? And was that something where all of those individual property owners kind of came in at once and said, "Hey, we're all going to do this." And they did it, or did the village coordinate that or even pay for it at some point? How How did that come about? So, it was it was by the property owners at a certain point in time. They they went on it. Give me a minute. I'll have to look at my permit log. Um, sure. I do didn't put them in.

I'm fairly certain not. Let me I thought I read where I do they might have they might have assisted at one point when I do expanded it but give me one more second. Let me let me look at the let me find out my permit log cuz I've seen documentation as well. Oh, I forgot. Sorry. One second. The laptop the the function key is where the control key is normally. So I'm like hitting the wrong button. Uh, but I remember specifically that it was that it came in and when we were talking about it, where is it? One more second. Um that yeah cuz I know it's their their property and I thought at one point in time someone had come in requesting like a couple of neighbors had come in and requested it and then at that and then they later u basically said we're not going to all put them up at once get all your neighbors on board and I think the neighbors got on board but uh let me see if I can find it really quickly. Yeah, there's mention here on page three of a resident who requested permission along Route 66 and the village said plant shrubs and table the matter until his neighbors had the same requests.

Yeah. So, at some point all the neighbors came in and said, "We're ready to correct put the fence in." And they all kind of did it at the same time, but it was on them to do it, right? Um Yeah. I'm kind of trying to look for it cuz there's also a fence along the back of the commercial property on Juliet like where the Walgreens and the

Yeah, that that's a couple of hills. But it seems to me like that one might have been put in by the commercial property owner because it all matches and it's that that was that was put in by when the property was uh created um as as part of it. But so to answer the answer the question of when those were put in there is an ordinance 96-13 so 1996 that amended the missile code to permit fence construction at a bunch of co you know 6634 6632 6630 those are all 2826 cochis and then 6624 through 6612 and oyola so that was in 1996 that they were permitted to put them in and there's a certain style and there's a lot of that this is my other my fence file that I'm trying to figure out a way to make it easily digestible.

So, there was just one ordinance passed to let everybody do it. They did it at the same time and now those fences are 29 years old, which is why they're starting fall down all over. Uh there are some at one point in time um in 20 I think it was 18 uh a lot of them got letters from us basically saying they need to fix those fences. Um so yes um what was the first part of that question? Oh that if if people have to come and get a variance to do the dog run maybe the issue is just that it's easy enough to comply and if people want to do it they just oh given permission to do it. So we don't have a record of action being taken.

Yeah. So for like a dog run type structure, we don't have a record for it because most time it'd be strung up and we wouldn't, you know, I'm not walking through people's backyards. Um the other opt, you know, same thing with like the enclosure, which is almost like an attached kennel, more of a style and um like I said, people probably put that in or put that over a patio or a deck or something and we wouldn't know. Or maybe they don't. Maybe it's just not enough of a benefit, more too much of a hassle. Um, but yeah, we do not have any. Uh, you know, I've not seen them and I don't think we have a record of them either.

The last thing is the survey.

Yep. So, the survey, you've seen a you've seen this before. Um this is what I had sent you uh previously to get your feedback on it. Um I will note that a recurrent bit of feedback was um either to uh add more specific questions either with with respect to um you know whether they think it would be good for property values or safety or you know others etc. and then also um you know some additional kind of education type components making it longer. Um, and in my replies to that, I've basically stated that we don't really want to create, well, first I want to keep it as short as possible because people have short attention spans and the shorter survey, the the easier it is. And um, in relation to trying to make either, you know, longer or add more options or add more um, education as well with it. Um, we really want to be careful about making about adding bias or leading questions. And so while a lot of things like do you think this improve your property values? Do you think this improve X? Do you think this is some it it's it creates a leading question which we don't want to do and to some extent that we don't really need to know their reasoning of why. We just want to know if they will or won't. Um so it's very basic and it's like I said it's five questions. Uh four of which you know if you actually if you answer no to number one. So I'm just going to read it out because there's not an example of it that we in the packet. So the first question we kind of went with um do you think do you believe that village mini head parks are allow fences in residential districts? If they answer yes, they go to the second question which we ask where they want it to be. If they answer no, they go all the way to question three. They answer don't know, they also go to question three. Um question two is if yes, uh where should they be allowed on residential properties? Please check all that apply. Um, and then we have a nice image I stole off the internet, um, that, you know, they can check where that is and

it shows them basically where on the property that they'll be. So they can go through, they could check that mark, check that box, tell us where they think they should be. Um, and then my third question was, and I added this one specifically in there for that kind of we we've seen I've seen a lot of people Justin kind of reading the reading the um reading the, you know, feedback previous years, current years about uh they seem to be split on like Wolf Road or Joliet Road or not really Willow Springs Road because only four like we only have like two houses on there or like four houses on there, but still Willow Springs Road is also very and Planefield road. And so this is why the third question I put in there is say basically regardless of whether you said they should have them or not, do you believe that properties boarding Willow Springs Road, Joliet, Wolf, and Planefield should be allowed to have fences on the part of the property that border those roads? It's a little wordy. I wish I can figure out a way to make it a little more concise. Um, but it basically is asking that, you know, if you have a property abudding that section of the the very high traffic road, do you think they should have it? And that was the question that in the 2019 fence survey was where it was split. So if you remember it was about 6040 no when they asked about regular you know fences but when they asked about Wolf Road it was about 6040 yes. So it it was had that kind of flip distinction in there. So that's why I added the question three in there. Um demographic information which is basically you know in which general area of the village you live. same as we did for the community survey, which is basically, you know, uh, west of Wolf Road, east of Wolf Road, or south of Juliet Road. And that captures pretty much single family, mostly not single family, but also mostly HOA, and then everybody else um the mix that is south of that. So,

and then the funnest question of all, which is any other comments, so they can tell us all of what they think about us

um on it. And uh like I said, I I do like in any other comments I add at the end because of the fact that it's the one that requires the most thought uh you know it requires a lot of you know writing and that it's not just kind of checking boxes and so I leave basically the most mentally challenging question that requires you to think the most to the end and so that they can then have gotten through it. Now they have all the energy they know they're done after this question. So um you know it's just it's kind of just good surveying. You don't want to tie them tire them out in the front end. Um, so, uh, like I said, so any other comments on there, so they can tell us that and, uh, I particularly like it because they might say something we don't know about, we can get that extra information. So that's the survey. To briefly touch on the process going forward, um, if you all give me the thumbs up on this, going forward, what we'll be doing is we'll be mailing it out to every household. Why are we mailing it out? because we looked at the digital options of it and there's not a good way to enforce basically a one respondent per that I've had quite a few people part of the concerns of you know digital ballot stuffing ballot box stuffing so we couldn't find a you know there there are some like uh survey monkey and other surveying um online that do it through IP address you know uh m um regulation um but the free ones only allow for like 25 responses I think we're going to get more than 25 responses. Um, and then we were looking at doing a Google form, but that requires you to sign. If you want to enforce only one response, it requires you to sign into Google account. Most people don't have Google accounts. Um, and then in further discussion on it, we realize that um, you know, twothirds of our water or two-thirds of our water bills are paid either by check or cash, not not at a digital option. Um and there and so because of that uh we wanted to we we looking at that and saying well if twothirds of an essential bill are paid by not electronic means we

might be missing a significant portion of the village by using a solely electronic manner. We looked at then putting them into the water bills but that comes with the fact that some people aren't on village water. Um and also that and then also some of the communities uh you know some of our that are on our water are also paid by their HOAs. Um so we don't have the each individual water bill. Um yeah so that so we start basically then we'd have to be mailing them individually with the and we basically went with the simplest option which is we we have a list of addresses in the village. We're just going to stuff them and send them out that way with a with a um with a self-returning envelope or self envelope on. So, that's what we're looking at doing um on them and that way we have it. We know it goes only one household when they come in and drop it off. We'll we'll make sure on we'll make sure that you know it's only we only get one of them back. So, if we'll be checking off addresses,

when do you want your lunch? So, that's the next point about it. If you give me a thumbs up tonight, we are going to start stuffing tomorrow and we are going to get them out in the mail this week so we can get them. We think about the questions short, sweet, direct, and to the point. Absolutely. Yeah, the temptation is to add more and we discussed that at the last meeting.

So the uh mental aptitude and attention, I thought we came in on five questions. So I I believe this is a good thing. The provision I guess is the creative question of five. You know what are the thoughts? They could recap that you know all the questions that have come up in the previous meetings about type of fence structure what about utility lines. they could recap that all here and then we could choose to summarize that in some fashion and maybe enhance our thoughts um based on the responses but I like the short concise easy to

do we uh have a meeting on the 4th or given it's election day will we push I don't think we have elections on the fourth this year okay at least DuPage County hasn't told me that I need to be there for them so Okay.

So, if we have a meeting on the 4th, which is the first Tuesday of November, and results are obviously the the results will trickle in up until the 30th, it's not like you're going to get hit with all of the results on the 30th. So assuming that's, you know, you're not inundated on the 30th, do you think you'll be able to compile a summary and present the results to us two days later? I should be able to provide I should be able to provide a um if nothing else a preliminary one. Okay.

Um you know, saying here's how many we received at this point, at this time. Um, and you know, as time come, we'll be analyzing them as they come in and as and as time continues on, we can, you know, any dramatic shifts, we'll know.

The uh the contingency factor that we probably should just briefly touch on is if we have a a low response, um, do we offer an extension? What's your thoughts there? So part of the benefit of sending it to every household in the village is that we should get enough for a statistical response on it. Um there are statistical methods that we can use to uh you know like looking at it we basically need about 10% of the 1800 to get back to us a little over maybe 15% which is to get us a good statistical sampling of the village. And um that's very doable. Um, and there's also uh I was we had concerns that were brought up about um in that what happens if what happens if you know twothirds of the ones that come in are from west of Wolf Road. And even though that's not how the population is split up and the other thing with that with that ability to have a very large sample, we can also do some statistical waiting if need be. Um if like only two of them come from south of Joliet, that's going to get a little bit weird. But at the same time, we could, you know, there's also the ability to read into it that if if you don't answer, no one answers, they obviously don't care that much, right? That's also something that can be read into it. Um, so there there are ways that we can do it. And that's part of the reason also we went with just mailing every household because with 4,000 people in town, um, you know, it's we don't have a we can't don't have a huge swath to be able just to to figure about. So instead, we are going to have to we're just going to hit we're going to hit everybody. And that basically almost provides us a very good chance of getting a a sample back large enough to get a representative a confident represent representative sample of the community that we can make database decisions on

on the demographic. And I ask this of the commission. Okay. I'm walking I may be going down a slippery slope here. Oh, I was going to have a followup to Did you I'm sorry. That's okay. Um, you're going to use actual data, not projected data when you have all the surveys in. Right. Right. So, we'll we'll do both. So, basically, I'm going to show you everything and say, "Hey, here's everything." But if, like I said, if we get something that's going to skew results, what we would what we'll do is we'll basically note on a response saying, "Okay, here's what the results here's the raw results. Here's what it says." And then if we were to balance it by the households from each geographic, so it'll be actual. Yeah. You you could you could see you'll see both. So, but if we only have 15, yeah, it's it's it's game day. Hopefully, we have 100 plus.

Yeah. We'll start we'll start knocking on people's doors at a certain point. Just So, on the demographic, do we care how old the respondent is? I don't care whether I I'm interested to know whether there's someone who able to

sure right I mean we get a bunch of responses from people east of Wolf Road who couldn't have a fence anyway and they're like sure have fences we we have to kind of discount that result because if you live in a condo I don't really care what your opinion about fences to be honest. So we cuz you can't have one anyway, you know, like it's it's taking a step back. We don't care how old people are, how old they are. Yeah. Like I I don't Are you assuming the old people live in condos and No, no, no, no, no. It's just if if the if the if Indian Head Park is transitioning, I.e. It's flipping from

Oh, you you want to see if there's any relationship between people who say yes, I want 20 to 40 or 40 to 60 or 60 to 80. I I I'm It would be interesting to know that, but that doesn't affect their standing to give us a response. Five questions. I would love to have 20. No, because we could go into this segmentation, but if this is the way we we hope to get at least initial thoughts on what the community is looking for, then we could decide to enhance that maybe with a issue a second one.

Yeah, I presume that we don't have endless budget to be sending mailed surveys with prepaid return envelopes to everyone in the village more than once. I mean we have the budget that is provided to us. Um it's not it's not that expensive but um when but yeah one of the techniques I've seen in surveys is you get the basic let's call it the five that you're really looking for answers on

and then they ask if you choose to please answer the following and then there's not a like gift card at the end or something like that but um enter into a lottery for a gift card. But that could be a consideration if we're limited by the number of surveys we could issue.

I think that I think that if we should wait till we get the results back because right it the results to come back could be very robust and answering all the questions we want or we can infer based on the data with a representative amount that we know what's go you know we we can make it we don't not looking for additional information. If you're looking for additional information, there's, like I said, there's different ways to do it. We can send out additional surveys. Um, you can do focus groups. You can do uh that one word that I can't pronounce, sharets. Sheretses. I can't ever pronounce it. Um, you can there's lots of different ways you can get more, you know, focused, segmented information if we really feel like we need to break down into it. But I think I think the beginning is this five questions. Um, I think it's a good start and I think it might answer all of our might answer all the all the data questions you'd have that are not more just kind of curiosity like age.

Sorry. So, how do we feel as a group? Is this a thumbs up? Motion to thumbs up. I agree to it. Motion to thumbs up. Let's see the results and then decide whether we need to take other action. I saw your how do I mean you would with with the household information you have that you're sending this to everybody. Yeah. Every house

you could theoretically send a targeted survey to people that own a property that might be affected by a particular regulation change or something. Engage, you know, engage a more targeted audience for some specific question if there if we were really struggling to understand the level of support for something. But I mean, you have the ability to say like we just want So we Yeah, we didn't certain kinds of households and

to get really into the statistical weeds. We didn't part of the other thing about sending it to everybody was we didn't do kind of a a random selection from the different segmentations of the populations of whether it's single family or condos or HOAs or we could do all that. um we didn't do all that because you know we think that this is sufficient and and good and it is also um I said before the benefits of the the broad-based sampling and at the same time it's also fast you know we do have limited staff and we do have limited ability to you know design and implement these surveys to some extent and we don't need to spend another 5 to 10 hours picking out random households if we don't need to if this if we want to do it again we could but

I I I think question four gets you close to what we're all seeking is some insights to who's actually completing the survey. And if the numbers are such that we can't do a really good interpretation of what people want, we could look at the directions of in the results of four and say, well, the reason why the numbers are they are because um south of Juliet is mostly condos and town homes or whatever. So, I think we could get there with what we have in the five questions initially. Agreed. Okay. All right. You have thumbs up.

Thank you. And and if we if any area comes back too, you know, small, I can always have you go bother your neighbors. Yes, for sure. I'll uh everybody's everybody get the word out. Precinct captains. We could do that. So, um, as far as presentation of material, that's everything. Nice work. That was a lot in the last month. Thank you very much.

That'll help us help support whatever the heck recommendation we have to the board. Um and to review the schedule we are electing to host two public hearings. Is that correct? We can host two public hearings if you feel that um more if you think that we hold a public hearing and more input is is needed.

Um now this is not a we're not changing the code. It's not like a legal public hearing that we have to then put in the paper and so many it's not that but um it is something that uh we can hold a public hearing and if you feel that like if we're here and the house is packed and it's been 2 and 1/2 hours and we're like okay well we obviously need to hear more again then we can have another one. Perfect. Okay. Okay. So, we're not advertising a public hearing. It's more of an open house, but yeah, it's it's going to be a it's going to be a you know, it's going to be on the website. We'll put it we'll put a sign up. We'll stick it on the Heritage Center. We'll do all the things and make it um on that subject.

In this upfront narrative, do we need to say the plan commission will be continuing discussions on November 4th and December? If you want to, we need to have the results of the survey to present to people when we have the public presenting. We're just saying we will be continuing the discussion.

We we can give a brief presentation at the beginning of it and and basically say we're just here to listen. Like we have I have nothing that's going to be on the next committee meeting that commission meeting that's not this. So we can say we're just here to listen. Here's kind of a we can do kind of a summary of everything we've done. Here's a recap of it. What are your thoughts? Excellent. Yes, I do actually like that of adding that. You know, we'll be having a public hearing on November 4th for an open house for it. Yeah, I would stay away from public hearing because it won't be a public hearing, right? Not as it's legally defined. No.

So, I defer to you on how you frame it, but we're inviting people to engage in the discussion. Let me double check what the resolution said because I think it said a public hearing in and if it does we'll have to advertise for it. I'll double check that and we'll I'll add that language the appropriate language to the survey. I like the idea of we will if if it if it's determined that we have to have some form of public formal public hearing we will schedule one

and if so this fills up and we're three hours in we'll continue it and have a second. to to Greg's point here, is the survey going to include the timeline so people know that there's going to be discussions on this on these following dates? Is that possible? I could probably I could fit in. I mean, we already have the October 30th and December 20 December on there. I could add the November and de I could add November um meeting in there as well. I wouldn't want to add the second December meeting in there because then people start getting confused. Yeah. Perfect.

Yeah. Because I think if you're once you research the legality of public hearing versus the friendly gathering then um we could decide you could decide the calendar timelines and add that in. But you you could I suppose you could kind of reinforce the importance of actually responding by the 30th by noting that you know this will be an item of discussion for the planning and zoning commission at their November 4th your input meeting at village hall at 7:00. You know like people who are really invested might make a note on their calendar when they get it. Um but that's why the responses are needed by when they're needed. That might

So, did we want to uh sorry interrupt um do we want to see if any there was any public comment on fences?

Real quick, um before we do, I'd like to plant the seed that uh ultimately all of this intelligence is going to be compiled and we're going to be tasked with some form of recommendation to the board. um whether that's December or January, we're coming up on having to present our findings of fact to uh the board and uh and making a recommendation as to how if what kind of modifications we may or may not need to make to the fence or ordinance. So, I just ask that that's our ultimate objective here. So, we've got a lot of information here. There's still a very important uh nugget in the form of the results of the survey coming. Um, so just kind of I I challenge everybody to start thinking about where you're at personally and then um you know what you may or may not have been hearing uh on the streets and uh if you have ideas on what a recommendation might look like that's going to come up on us real quick and uh that will probably not be a short meeting. So yes, I'm guessing you What are you doing here? I'm just kidding.

I'm new to the neighborhood. What's up? Is that right? Welcome. Where you live? Wonderful. Bring it. Oh, sheds and all that. You got the whole thing, huh? Just kidding. Go big or go home, you know. Welcome. Hey, are you really new? I am. Excellent. How long you been here? Uh, since May. Wonderful. I moved from Um, no I just Awesome. Okay. Well, questions. Are they Are they Are they on the subject? Yes.

Wonderful. Ask you a good l numbers. No numbers. Can you just check to make sure that the mic's mic's actually on? It should be looking green. And you're gonna and in order to speak, you have to give your name and your address. So, no, we don't no address. Yeah. And social security. It doesn't have to be social. No. No. No. We we are legally obligated not to ask for the address, infer about it or do any of that sort. Okay. Wow. So, stop asking for addresses. Clap your hand. Some people offer it. They they do offer it, but we don't we don't we cannot legally ask it. All right.

Uh good evening. Um Brian Wolf, uh new Indian Head Park resident. Um just have a couple couple questions. Um so the info that that is it Brandon Brendan provided um is that available to everybody?

The his his uh memos and everything are um I'm going to be adding some back in, but if you go into the uh agenda center and you click on the download agenda, it's the agenda and the packet. Okay. Um, I've had them out. I've been out since Wednesday. I just got back from vacation. Um, but we are working on creating a landing page. Well, you'll start seeing more and more of this information so it can be more and more reviewed. Uh, but most of the information that I covered tonight is in the packet. So, you can look at that and the previous packets as well. In that, and again, because I've never seen this before, um, does it include crime statistics?

We it it includes crime. No, it does not include crime statistics for it. Um because we're so fully so focused solely on fences. Um when doing our research on the fences, we were looking to see if you know fences residential style fences. I should clarify that. Um have any deterrence for crime? And it's actually the data is not very clear.

Um there's no unbiased source that says like offense does you know not now it's a static barrier. So, you know, it's going to help somewhat control any sort of um movement through the through the uh you know, a yard or any other type of thing. Uh but with fences at most residential fences being um well, they're actually most residential open fences are open because if you have a if you have a closed fence, you can't see through. Um it actually doesn't deter crime because once you get over the fence, nobody can see what you're doing. Uh so that's why most fences are considered mostly 50% open. Um, so you can see what's going on in the back of it. Uh, but with the fences at our heights and without spike tops, barbed wire, etc., right? Uh, there's not really, you know, I tell people like I'm 5'2 and I can jump a sixoot fence at two two steps. Not gracefully, but I can. Um,

and it ain't going to be graceful, but I could do it. Um, and so so if I, you know, it would slow a person down, but especially it it there's not really any good statistics. We did look into that in depth on it. Well, I'm just cur I mean because I I have a fence that's a deterrent around a pool. I'm just c you know and then we talk about style of of fence. Um was that also in the uh in this uh infog piece?

So yes, as the the village does currently allow fences on in pools and it's in our code um what kind of style of fences that are allowed around pools and for reasonable accommodations. Um the reason they're they're allowed around pools is specifically for the building toad requires them and that is to make sure that anyone that is basically under 48 inches can't idly wander into a pool and fall in and drown in it. Right. Um and then also our fences, our current fence code allowed for reasonable accommodations 5T black rod iron. Whatever was grandfathered in or whatever was put in was based on the IHP code,

right? Um and and then I did see something um you know when you talk about well fences and you guys brought up animals um what about Lyme disease did any was there any info on Lyme disease because I'm just with you know for instance my deter is my fence and I I see deer often um and people are wanting this this beautiful open oasis um to allow for animals to move freely Um, was there anything mentioned about deer ticks? No, that's actually the first time I heard it, but now that you make that comment, you know, it's it's interesting to make the connection on it.

I mean, IDPH does talk about that there's been a rise. Um, 23 24 there was um it came down,

but I'm just curious if that was looked at from an Indian head park perspective. Now, I will say that um deer fences tend to be not very effective. Um and one of the but also at the same time, one of the reasons we don't allow spike top fences is because deers don't always clear fences. I came from a community that allowed that allowed fences and then some that were grandfathered in that legally non-conforming had spike tops and about four every year had to be euthanized by police officers because they don't make they don't clear the spike top fence. Um And that's not what I'm looking for. I'm just looking at this study.

My my point is is that there isn't anything that we've seen on it. Um there is there is some commentary about trying to keep wild animals out. Normally it's more like coyotes. Um but uh fences for for restricting kind of like deer aren't very unless you're starting to get into the 7 foot range um or like six foot minimum 7 foot range, they're not very effective for it unfortunately. Um, but that, you know, controlling the wild animal population to control disease is not something that we've specifically looked at. So, I think to your point, something we need to address in our report.

Well, I'm just just curiosity because, you know, then because you guys talked about pets and people wanting to have fences for their pets. Well, if I'm allowing, you know, creatures into my backyard, I just want to know that my dog or dogs or whatever pet I have is not then picking up a population of deer ticks that's been coming from, you know, various places in Cook County just to hang out here because they know the deers can roam freely, you know, just

No, that's a that's a very good point. That's why I always actually do love public comment because people will throw things at me that we never heard before. Um and then I do have is there a breakdown when when you guys are looking at these five questions? Um is is there a breakdown of because you mentioned uh proximity and you mentioned streets and busyness. Is there a way to look at it from the perspective of you can either have a fence or not have a fence? I mean like I'm on Wolf Road and and and the car population is ever growing. Mhm. You know, um

is there discussion about, you know, extending um some of the parameters of these fences just to streets like a Wolf Road or spec, you know, again, I'm new to the area. That that is why question three was on there or was the whole fact of the roads that we outlined in there, Wolf Road, Planefield Road, uh Joliet Road, and Willow Springs Road are either county or in the case of Joliet Road, they're ID dot. Okay.

Um and so they are the Planefield Road has is currently being planned for an expansion. Um and it's ever getting every busier. Wolf Road is currently being planned for an expansion. It's ever get ever busier. Willow Springs has been recently expanded. It It's a very It's a very popular thoroughfare and Joliet Road is the on-ramp to I-55. Um so that is why that question is in there because those are the unique roads in the village that have higher traffic counts and are not controlled by the village. Um and so and there's there's additional um work that is going to be done or has been done on them. Uh so that is why that question three was in there because I as I said in our previous 2019 survey it was about 6040 against it in general for residential uses until you until the question was asked about do you think that people on Wolf Road for their safety should be allowed to have fences and then it flipped to 6040 for it. So it was kind of that that's a very unique situation and we want to capture if that opinion is still there. Um debiasing the question a little bit. The question was a little bit leading but you know at the same time you know we are now much more in informed about Wolf Road and the expansion and what's going to happen and so if they the community should be more well aware of it and so we can see if we can capture that segmentation of in specific cases and if it and if it does happen to be that way there are there are certain zoning options that can happen like overlay districts that make those properties unique to the rest of the village

right I and I happen to be a unique property I I've got I've got I'm on Wolf Road. I've got a pool. I've got a fence, but is that really enough of a deterrent that fence, you know, because it has its um you know, it has its legal piece and it's got to be a certain way. I'm just curious, you know, with Wolf Road, how you know, and as you said, you put a question there to specifically look at Wolf Road and potentially other roads like that.

And that and that if that's part of that's one of the options that the plan commission could recommend. you know, they come down with a recommendation that the village doesn't shouldn't just have a general approval for fences in residential areas. Um, however, in certain locations, kind of like we already have now because any residential area that abuts a business district, they can have a fence, right? Um, and so that could also be something that the that the plan commission and the board could recommend and say, "Well, we don't like general fences for the reasons, but you know, in these specific areas, um, and being taken into account, right,

and ultimately, you know, it'll be up to the board to make a decision and we're just recommending what our findings are and hearing a lot of exactly what you're describing. Uh, especially budding a a major thoroughare like Wolf."

Yeah. And and like you know, one of the things we we bought in Indian Head Park. Um I mean, yeah, because it's it it's beautiful. It's got trees, but there's also we're a family. We've got pets. Um and like I said, we're unique where we have a pool as well. Um you know, and then, you know, Western Springs was touted as one of the most amazing, most beautiful, you know, cities in in the state of Illinois, if not the number two, the number one. But why are they the number one? Why are they the number two? Do they have fences? Was it was it the fences that helped you know secure that that piece that they are number one in the state of Illinois? You know, was that a security piece? You know, was it, you know, the option that people had choices there versus, you know, Indian head Park? I mean, you know, just I saw this piece I was like, oh, they're number one. I'm like, no. You know, so

I'm not saying they probably paid for it. I'm just saying that most time this happens. All love to Western Springs. I know I have colleagues over there and they're a good town. I just I left there. I came here. Oh, well, obviously we're better then. Um, no. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Please uh remain engaged.

Okay. Anything else on fences for this evening? Sounds like we're going to fire on the survey. We'll have another discussion November. perhaps uh a bit more attendance in the audience. Um if nothing else on fence regulations, let's uh anything on zoning code?

Uh nothing uh large on it. I will say that um just kind of working our way through it. Uh one of the benefits of having safe built is when things pop up and especially now we're doing the code, I can add things in there. We had a an issue with questions about whether lights were too bright recently. We have nothing in our code that really provides that. So I asked them to add something in there and they'll be doing that looking at in the future. So that'll make our lives easier for developments going forward, but also my life easier as the code enforcement officer so I can stand outside with a light meter and tell you if your neighbors lights are too bright. Terrific. Anything from the plan commission that we haven't already discussed? Related? Unrelated? Nothing.

Board report. Building report.

Board report. Uh the board approved the um 147 Cascade uh ordinance. So that has been put into permit review and I am working with them to get that approved. Um building report. I am I apologize. I have don't have it for you. I'm still between August and September. I think I told you last time we got a lot of permits. um something like one more than one a day through those two that month and a half. Um so I'm still trying to get them out because I'm significantly behind. Apologize to anybody that has a permit out there. I'm working as fast as I can. Um and so I do not have a a building report because I'm trying to get them all in so I can generate it out of there to have a better building report for you.

That's fine. What uh what's this? Uh I see we have a new auto repair shop in town. That was the one you approved in I don't know. I I know. But uh that's that's terrific news. We've got a vacancy has been filled and it it seems to be doing well and um actually our sometimes our public works takes guys over there or takes some of our vehicles over there to get work done well and they seem to be pleased by it. Excellent. I've already gone there and they're good. It's good. Worked out well. They know you're a plan commissioner.

No. No. My I sent my husband. What what are the odds in a typical election where you get preliminary results like 5% of the surveys have been returned? Is there an indicator that could be sent to us before our next planning and zoning meeting? Is that worth it or are you going to

I mean depending on how many come in and what the time frame looks like. I could definitely send like a weekly report. I think I'll have some other interest that would want that as well. Um, but uh, you know, I it just depends on the time frame of it of what we're looking at. I'll probably give a bare basic minimum of it, but we won't be doing any analysis with kicking out right away. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Do we have a Facebook page? We have a Facebook page. I think we have I think we have an Instagram page. So, we have quite a few of the socials. Will you be able to post or other? Do I look Can somebody just say, "Hey, keep your eyes out for a mailer on fences."

Yes, we I was going to make the joke that I don't have a Facebook, but that'd be a lie because I've had a Facebook since 2008. Um, no. Uh, we'll definitely have it out. It's going to be an all kind of an all kind of heads up. Um, you know, this keep an eye out for this. Do this. We'll have signs out the whole thing. Excellent. Any comments from the public? If no comments from the public, any closing remarks from the plan commission. If not, I'd entertain a motion for an adjournment. I'll move to adjurnn. I'll second.

Commissioner Corley Barnes motion to adjurnn. Second by Mr. Tentill. All in favor of adjourning say I. I. I. All opposed. Nice work team.