Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, this is a W County Planning and Zoning Commission regular meeting of April 21st and I'm calling this meeting to order and asking everybody to rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Roger, would you please lead us in the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the flag and America to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all.

I have a roll call, please. Roll call. Hugh Stippen. Yes. Here. John Kener here. Kimberly Mitchell. Roger Betttonhousen here. Karen Warick here. Lewis Navaret and Matt Garland

I'm going to ask everybody who's going to speak tonight to swear in and I'm going to swear you in in mass. So please raise your right hands. I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help me God. I do. Thank you. and ask a favor. Please turn off, turn down, or put in airplane mode your cell phones. We have been asked at this meeting if we could please move an item on the agenda and I think we will try to do that.

Mr. Chairman, I'd make a motion for agenda item six other case 2646-49 vex extension 26-003 to move it to the front of or to be the first agenda case. Do I hear a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. Okay, the eyes have it. Um, I guess I should have made sure the applicant was here first.

Okay, so we will start with case number what is that 2. Yeah. Excuse me, Commissioner. Could we approve the minutes, please? So, didn't catch what you said. The minutes. Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Disclosure. I forgot to open that email until 10 minutes ago. Yeah. I have a motion to approve the minutes, please, of um March 3rd, 2026. So moved. Second.

I have a motion and a second. Everybody's had a chance to read them. I hope so. U want to do a roll call on this one. Roll call for the March 3rd, 2026 meeting. Kimberly Mitchell. John Kefner, yes. Roger Bettton, yes. Matt Garland, yes. Lewis Navaretes, absent. Karen Warick, yes. And Hugh Stippen, yes. Approved. Next, we have second minutes of March 18th. They have a motion for those. Motion to approve minutes for March 18th, 2026. Second.

Kimberly Mitchell. Yes. John Kefner. Yes. Roger Bettton. Matt. Abstain. Okay. Thank you. Matt Garland. Yes. Karen Warick. Yes. And Hugh Stippen. Yes.

Approved. So now we will start with case number B XT26-00003 variance extension request. It's all back. It's three. ready. Okay. I will start with the variance extension um 260003. This is a variance extending um the variance for street setback from 30 ft to 10 ft. Um this was variance 2539. So, the applicant is Peter Krisenowski,

and I'm sorry if I mispronounced it. I do want to point out that the applicant's last name was spelled incorrectly on the agenda. Um, but we will correct that for the ordinance should this be approved. The subject property is located in Lockport. Um, it is zoned R4 and this is the first extension request for the zoning case ZC25023, which was the variance for street setback. Um to give just a quick summary, um the applicant intends to construct a single family residence at 328 Del Park Avenue in Lockport and a permit has yet to be submitted for this residence. Um this zoning case was heard back last April, um April 15th of last year granting the street setback variance, but if you recall this property, um they also at that time requested a variance to allow a sideyard setback, but this commission denied that request. The applicant appealed that to the county board, but that appeal failed. The applicant then submitted another variance request with ZC25119, which was heard by you last December, and you granted um the variance for the sideyard setback with six votes in the affirmative. Um, so pursuant to the zoning ordinance, the planning and zoning commission is authorized to extend the expiration up to good cause for variance up to two separate times for up to 180 days. Um, this would grant the variance that was approved last April. So, this would allow him um if you would grant this extension to October 12th to get that building permit for the single family residence where he would be allowed to encroach into the sideyard setback and the street yard. Um, so with that, uh, staff is recommending, um, the first extension request of the variance. Um, I do apologize for the typo for both variances. It's just a single variance from that 30 ft to, uh, 10 ft. And I'm

happy to answer any questions. No questions. Anyone have any questions? Thank you very much. Are there any uh opposition to this case here today? Concerned citizens or objectors? No. Okay. Thank you. May I hear from the principal, Mr. Kersinowski, or his representatives?

I hope I didn't murder your name too much. That's real good. You know, you guys did pretty well. Yeah, I know it's I know it's a tough one on paper. Uh, thank you for letting me come up. Are there any questions about this? I think Margarite did a great job uh explaining kind of what happened um based on one of the variants is not getting approved. It's taken longer to uh go through the design process. So, so you're ready to start now if you could get this. Yes, sir. I know how hard it is in this trying times to get things started. Yeah, absolutely. Um, any other questions from anyone?

Okay, thank you. We're going to take a vote. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Motion to approve the variance extension for VEX 26-003, variance V25-040. Second. Yeah. If this extension is approved, it'll be until October 12th. So, I have a roll call vote, please. Kimberly Mitchell, yes. John Kefner, yes. Roger Bettton, yes. Matt Garland, yes. Karen Warick, yes. And Chairman Houston, yes. Approved.

Okay, sir. You passed everything. So, I wonder The next case tonight is ZC-25-1349955. U it will also be done Margarite Kenny Are we getting out of order?

That's sewn in case one, isn't it? So, it's not out of order. It's got different numbers. It's the right voting case number, but the numbers that follow it. Alex, yeah, the agenda says 26. It's 25. Yeah. Oh, Alex's this is Yeah, that's the first one. Yeah, we're the weekend says in mine. Alex, you you're presenting tonight.

Yes, I am.

Okay. Uh, so I am presenting zoning case ZC2134. Uh the owner is 9955 Mandel LLC with Jeff Cole and Scott Ernstein both having 50% interest. The attorney is Heather Glocker of uh Castle Law. The applicant is requesting a special use permit uh for outdoor storage for the their HVAC and plumbing business as well as a variance for fence height within street setback. Next slide. Uh subject property is an un is unimproved. The property is zoned I1 with two uh 26,867 square ft of area and 344.8 ft of lot frontage along Wolf Crossing Road and 139.31 ft of frontage along Mandel Road. The parcel was improved without permits as a truck terminal by a previous owner. code code enforcement was informed and cited the property. The work without a permit and trucks have been removed and with zoning action site development permit the parcel would be brought into compliance. This is uh there is a proposed bike path by the forest preserve of Will County on Wolf's Crossing Road. The proposed location is north directly across the subject property uh until it reaches Carl's Drive where then it moves across to the south side of Wolf Crossings where the pass path is proposed in front of uh in front of the pro property that is directly east of the subject property and continues east of the park. Next slide. Uh and then here's the PLA survey which shows the current uh shows the current layout of the property uh and the fence that is in the rideway uh along uh Wolf's Crossing Road. Next slide.

Uh the proposes outdoor storage for HVAC and plumbing business. The storage is for the primary B business which is located at 10261 South Mandel Street, Planefield. Uh no principal structure is proposed at this time. Any future building would require separate zoning uh and building approvals. HVAC and plumbing businesses without principal structures are classified as outdoor storage yards require special use approval within the I1 zoning district while those with principal structures are permitted by right. Uh the proposed hours of operation are Monday through Friday Friday uh from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Uh the business will not be open to the public and is anticipated to generate approximately 10 vehicle trips daily uh from parking of vehicles on site. Next slide. And then this is the zoning map uh with a prop uh subject property outlined in red. Uh next slide. And then this is ROAR's uh future land use map which shows the area of the uh that is the south side of Wolf's Crossing uh being industrial and uh the subject property is where that blue star is located on the map. Next slide. And then so as the view looking at the subject property uh from Mandel Street. Next slide. This is a view looking inside the subject properties showing three cargo containers. Next slide. This is a view looking at the fence encroaching into the street set back on Wolf's Crossing. Next slide. This is view looking at the fence encroachment into the street set back along Mandel Street. Next slide.

And this is a view looking southeast at a neighboring uh property. Next slide. And then this is looking across uh Mandel Street at adjacent property. Next slide. And then this is looking west along Wolf's Crossing. Next slide. And this is looking north along Mandel Street. Next slide. uh the criteria by uh which staff in this commission uh shall review special use permits are provided on the screen and deaf analysis is provided in the packet to summarize the south side of wolf's crossing corridors characterized by industrial uses including motor vehicle repair facilities, automobile dealerships and outdoor storage facilities. Uh the proposed outdoor uh storage yard uh is in compi is compatible with sim and in similar nature to existing uses in the area. A site development permit will be uh required to allow for the storage yards. Uh any future structures will also require obtaining a building permit to be issued before it is constructed. Uh the development will be required to comply with all applicable county adopted codes and ordinances including the will county water resource ordinances, building code and zoning ordinance. Will county uh will county storm water and zoning ordinances as well as applicical codes uh that Wheatland Road District Fire Protection District and Will County Health and Department enforce because the property is unimproved. The applicant will be required to obtain an access permit from the Wheatland Township Road District. Uh the I1 zoning district lot and building standards apply to this parcel. The zoning ordinance requires outdoor storage areas to be screened on all sides of the property. Screening will not be allowed in the vision site triangle at the intersection of Mandel and Wolves Crossing. The applicant seeking variance to allow for an 8-ft

tall fence to be located along Mandel and Wolf's Crossing within the street uh setback that was built by a previous owner. The proposal satisfies all criteria for the special use. Uh next slide. Uh similarly, variances are reviewed based on criteria listed on the next two slides and in-depth analysis is provided in the packet. To summarize, staff finds the play of the owner is not due to unique circumstances and streetard setback fences are only allowed to be up to four feet in height. This site is a corn lot, meaning it has two street setbacks on Mandel Street and Wolf's Crossing. Uh the fence could be moved back to meet street uh setback and screening requirements. The special character of the area is industrial. Many properties along Wolf Crossing have outdoor storage and perimeter fencing close to the street rightway. Uh the request is within character. Next slide. And then regarding the second criteria, staff finds that the conditions of the subject property does not result in particular hardship upon the owner if the fence was not located within the street setback. The fence could be 8 ft in height. Uh staff finds the condition upon which the variance uh application is based would be applicable to other corner law 8 I1 properties. Uh the proposed fence is required to comply with vision clearance uh requirements at the site uh entrance to ensure safe access to public roadway. Next slide. Then for agency comments, so the will South Cook uh County Soil Mark Conservation District um in the NRI said the work taking place on existing property will have little to no effect on the existing land. Uh the EcoAT uh stated that the natural resources reviewed by the EcoAT identified protected resources, the Vermont Cemetery Prairie uh Nature Preserve that may be in the vicinity of the proposed action, but the department has evaluated

this information and concluded that adverse effects are unlikely. Uh Wheatland Town uh Township Road District uh said that on the attached PL survey, the fence is not on the property and that the fence would need to be moved back onto the property. Other agencies were notified and did not prefer uh not uh provide written comments. Next slide. Uh so staff is recommending approval of the special use permit with two conditions and denial of the variances. I'm can answer any questions. Uh the question of height of the fences on site.

Yeah. Uh yeah. So the fence that's currently on site's 8 feet and so that was built encroaching in the street setbacks on Mandel and Wolf's crossing and then streetyard setbacks it's only allowed to encroach if it's 4T. Okay. So if if uh they triangulated across the corner and brought the fence in Yeah. If they brought it not encroaching or Yeah. not encroaching into the street setbacks, it could still be 8 feet. Okay, thank you. Does anyone else have any questions?

So, the fence is already there. Was that fence permitted? No. So, that was with the previous owner that did the whole truck terminal without a permit. Uh, and so that fence was not permitted. Uh, and also just a little note, the current fence uh would also need to it's chain link and for screening it needs to be solid. So it also need to have like slats or something to also meet streaming or screening requirements. But yeah, the fence was not like permitted. Okay. So all the other fences in the area that they show are 8 foot and just the chain link. Um, were all those permitted? Do you know?

So that is hard to tell because with fences we don't specifically require a permit. Uh, so it's hard to tell if those were built with permits. Typically when we check with that with like the site development and like they show a plan showing the design of the fence, but Right. So those those would have been planning and zoning had it been permitted for to go 8 ft on those. Uh, yeah. But it's just someone can build a fence without a permit and so it can since we don't require it. Uh, so it it's a little hard to track whether which ones have permits and which ones don't.

Okay. Thank you. No more questions. Thank you very much. Alex, are there concerned citizens or objectors to this case here tonight? There are no concerned citizens or objectors. Okay. May I hear from the principles? Um, attorney or Jeffrey Cole, Heather Clock or Jeffrey Cole? Oh, I'm going to get both. Good evening. I'm Heather Glackler with Castle Law. With me today is Scott. Um Jeffrey is unavailable unavailable tonight. Um so good evening again. Um thank you to staff. I know they put a lot of time into this. Um I want to mention that staff had actually recommended and this commission recently approved a variance for a similarly situated property in Lockport. Um however in that report staff did find that the property did have frontage road on two public roads as is the case here. Um however that property was sandwiched instead of cornered. Um, this is a clear demonstration that this commission routinely grants relief when necessary to allow effective screening for outdoor storage and accommodate practical site constraints, particularly in industrial areas for the property tonight in question. Um, this fence does predate my client's ownership. It was constructed about uh 2020 and my client uh acquired this in 2025 at the end of 2025 December. The applicant did not create this hardship. Um, however, they are attempting to bring this into compliance, including um, meeting any screening standards as required by the county. This is a unique circumstance.

This is a corner lot which imposes two streetyard setbacks. Um, Mandel and Wolf's Crossing. The property is functionally deprived of the same use and screening um that would be afforded to similarly zoned properties in this area as seen in the pictures provided by my client. This is not self-imposed. This is a sight specific limitation created by the uh property's configuration being a corner lot. Um the 4ft fence permitted um in a street setback is not capable of screening the outdoor storage as required under the ordinance. Um, as mentioned by staff, my client will be um storing HVAC equipment um and no semi trucks. Uh, I know that's a big a big issue for this area. Um, the 8ft fence would effectively screen that with proper slats um as required by the county. Um, this is the only effective method of compliance with the screening requirement. Again, this property has two setbacks. So, this is a unique condition for this um specific property. Again, this is a practical hardship, not just a mere inconvenience. It's a functional inability to comply with the ordinance as written and strict application of the code um would prohibit uh the owners from achieving the compliance in the screening. Um the property cannot be reasonably uh reasonably used for conformity with both of the ordinances as written with that. Um the strict enforcement of the 4ft fence requirement is not merely an inconvenience. It's just a functional in inability to comply with coexisting zoning reg uh requirements. There are a few properties in the area um which I did point out um in GIS that are similarly situated um

two in particular do have quarter lots and based on the GIS in my review again I'm using the distance tools there I can't be certain that they're um accurate um the two properties on Schultz which are corner lots appear to have the same issue that my client is facing Um, and again, I know staff hasn't been able to confirm that. However, um, we would be pointing you to those uh, those two um, properties there. There are a few other um, properties that are not corner lots that do have fences that appear um, to have fences in the the street setback. So, um, again, this is not a unique situation and we would be asking um, for your uh, approval of these variances. We're here to answer any questions you guys have.

Well, it it is a simple solution is just go ahead and truncate the triangle uh of the corner until you've got your your uh street awareness and from both corners from both directions. And I think my client would definitely be open to just truncating the corner as you suggested. Yeah, that that to me is the simplest solution. Then go ahead and put the slats in that you have there. I can't tell you how to construct the fence, but

one question. Um is the 8 foot fence just generally for security versus foots that usually carry a lot of copper that that's yeah that's a great question. So it is partially for security reasons but also to meet the screening um requirements per the county. Yeah. But you're storing expensive things outside. You don't want them taking legs and taking a hike. Yeah. It's a little harder to get get over an 8ft fence, too, with the copper.

Is there any other questions from anyone? Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Chairman ZC25-134, special use permit 26-004. Motion of approval for a special use permit for outdoor storage with the two conditions noted by staff and report. Second. I have a motion and second. Please give me a roll call. Kimberly Mitchell. John Kefner? Yes. Roger Bettton? Yes. Matt Garland, yes. Karen Warick, yes. And chairman Hugh Stippen, yes.

Approve. Mr. Chairman, same case 134, variance 25-178. Motion for approval for a variance for fence height within streetyard setback Wolf's Crossing Road from 4T to 8T. Second. Uh Kimberly Mitchell. John Kefner. Yes. Roger Bettton. Yes. Matt Garland. Yes. Karen Warick. Yes. And chairman Hugh Steen. Yes. Approved. The same 134 case variance 26-014. Approval of variance for fence height within streetard setback Mandal Street from 4T to 8 ft. Second. Kimberly Mitchell. Yes. John Kefner. Yes. Roger Bettenhousen. Yes. Matt Garland.

Yes. Karen Warick. Yes. And Chairman Hugh Stipp approved. The next case tonight is ZC25-142. Wait a second. I got 141 here. use permit for commercial solar facility.

Yes, it's the listed as 141. That's the case number and it's 142 in.

Yeah. 142 in I don't know. Margarita, you gonna do this case? Alex gonna do it. Alex is going to do this case. So, okay. It's got your name on the bottom of all of them. That's why I asked. I figured I'd change it up.

So, so this is zoning case 25. ZC2142. The owner is Barrow Gerald Win Trust uh with Windbarrow uh having 50% interest and Gerald Barrow having 50% interest as well. The agent is Michaela Blanton of One Energy Development LLC. Uh the attorney is Courtney Kennedy of Man Galbach Badger and uh Considine LLC. Uh the applicant is requesting a special use permit for a commercial solar facility with two variances for a number uh for a number of required mowings and plant height. Uh so this is aerial view of the property. The property is outlined in red. The parcel is within Troy Township. Uh the village of Manuka, village of Shanahan, and the village of Shorewood are all within a 1.5 mile radius of the subject property. Uh this is the zoning map of the prop uh property. The subject property is zoned A1. Uh per the PLA survey, the property is a total of 21 acres in size with 4 489 ft of lot frontage along Shepley Road. Uh the property is deemed a conforming A1 parcel. And then here is the PLA survey of the property. And then this slide uh shows the updated site plan. Uh staff sent a memo uh stating that after a request by Manuka Fire District, the applicant updated the site plan to include emergency access gate at the northeastern portion of the property. The updated site plan is shown on the screen. An estimated uh 5,112 parcels are proposed uh for this project. The panels uh will be mounted on fixed uh tilt facing south. Uh there

is a proposed access road uh giving the property access to Shepley Road, an access permit uh from the Troy uh Troy Township uh road district will be required. The property contains a 75- ft pipeline easement that runs through the middle of the property. The applicant is proposing proposing DC cable crossing over the easement. Uh correspondence from the easement grantee will be required showing the proposed cable crossing is permitted over the easement. Uh two equipment pads are proposed that will contain the inverters and transformers. The equipment pads are uh proposed to be 274 ft away from the closest residents. Uh a noise study was submitted showing the project compiles uh or complies uh with the Illinois Pollution Control Board noise regulations. A glare analysis was conducted that showed that no glare was predicted. Uh the applicant uh submitted correspondence with commed showing progress towards entering into interconnection agreement. Uh staff has added a condition requiring the submittal of completed inter uh connect interconnection agreement at the time of permitting. The applicant completed this application on uh February 17th, 2026. The applicant did submit a written statement waving their right to have uh the access uh their case be heard at public hearing within 60 days and have a decision made by county board within 30 days. And then these are the physical characteristics. So this is view looking north at the subject property. Uh this is view looking at the northwest p uh portion of the property. A view looking at the southwestern portion of the property. A view looking east down Shepley Road. View looking west down Shepley Road.

Uh so application submitt requirements. Uh what's bolded in red is required uh by is the required Illinois sighting requirements and then the black bold is what's permitted for counties to require. Uh the applicant has submitted all the required submittals for this case to proceed to public hearing. Uh the applicant has submitted a complete application which includes the listed documents shown on the screen. An application is not considered complete until approvals um are received by each item listed on the screen. Uh due to recent case of equity solar Illinois versus county of Grundy, the listed special use criteria is not applicable uh to commercial solar energy facilities. Additionally, Shanahan McKinley Woods at all versus Will County directed Will County uh to to approve previously denied special use permits for six solar farms. Uh and then the variance requests were uh reviewed based on the criteria outlined on the screen. A more detailed analysis can be found near packets. But to summarize, the state encourages commercial solar energy facilities to use pollinator friendly plant species native to Illinois. Uh for the native plant species to grow effectively, uh they need to grow higher than 13 in. The applicant did submit a perennial oper operations and maintenance plan as part of their submittal outlining uh mowing uh will be done. uh staff will require final version of the operations and maintenance plan at the time of permitting and then uh staff receives a comment from the village of Shorewood stating the parcels outside their planning area. As mentioned earlier uh the Manuka fire protection uh requested the addition of emergency access gate. Um the developer add the gate and submit updated site plan to reflect that. Um that was sent

out as a memo. The NR NRI report gave this property a LISA score of 153 out of 300 placing placing it in the county's areas and productive farmland category. As part of the permitting process, staff will require the applicant to work with soil conservation district to help develop a conservation plan. So staff is recommending approval of the special use permit with three conditions shown on the screen and approval of the two requested variances. I can answer any questions. Anybody have any questions?

No questions. Okay. Thank you very much, Alex. Are there concerned citizens or objectives to this case tonight? There are not. Okay. And may I hear from the principal attorney Courtney Kennedy, right? I'm call representative from Okay. Representative from One Energy.

Do you mind pulling up the slides, Alec? Thanks. Now, please give your name for the records. Sure. Absolutely. It's Michaela Blandon. M I K E L A B L A N T O N for the record. Okay.

Well, chairman, members of the commission, members of the public, staff, thank you so much for being here tonight. My name again is Michaela Blandon. I'm joined here tonight by a large team, including Tory Day, who has worked tirelessly on this project. is Andrew Bayar who's our director of engineering and can answer any technical questions that come up as well as legal representation, Courtney Kennedy who's here as well. Go to the next slide, please. Uh before I dive into project specifics, I want to tell you a little bit about our company. So, One Energy was founded in 2009 and since that time, we've developed over a gigawatt of solar. We are a nationwide developer, but we have a very large footprint in the Midwest. And over the past five to six years, we've developed about 55 Midwest solar projects, many of which are located in Wisconsin, where we have our largest office in Madison. Um, we've also developed eight community solar projects that are in operation right here in Illinois, and we have four more that are under construction. Next slide, please. I'll tell you a little bit about the project. I know that um Alec just gave this overview, so I won't spend too much time on this slide, but just a reminder, it is about 20 acres. We're using about 15 acres of that for this project. The site plan that you're going to see tonight that you have in front of you shows 12 fenced acres, but I like to say 15 in the event that we get to final engineering and we need a little bit of buffer room. So, that's why I have 15 up on the site tonight. It is zoned as agriculture and it is currently used for alalfa production. Zoning will not change with this permit as you know. Um, it is a KMED interconnect and since the time that we last spoke, Alec, we actually have executed our interconnection agreement and so that is something that I can submit as well. Um, and it is contemplated as a candidate for the Illinois Shines adjustable block program, the state community solar program. It's a 2 megawatt AC project, which means that it's going to serve about 370 homes plus or minus. And this is a fixed tilt PV as Alec mentioned. So instead of having those rotating panels which you might typically see here in

Will County, these are going to be fixed fixed mounted ground mounted south facing at a 20° tilt angle and I'll show you that in the site plan as well. Um then again this is a special use permit. We're seeking two different variances and the earliest this thing would likely come online is going to be the summer of 2027. Next slide please. Okay, great. Um, before we dive into project details, I do want to spend a little bit of time talking about the engagement that we've done to get to this point. So, I know you have all the studies in front of you and Alec gave the staff report, so I won't go into all of those, but I do want to draw attention to our conversations with the Troy Township Road Authority and just clarify that we have conversed with them both in person and over the phone and email communications multiple times on this project. We're excited to work with them. Um, we've also worked with the MOA Fire Department. As Alec mentioned, we've recently updated the site plan to accommodate some requests from them. And then we've worked very closely with the village of Manuka and surrounding neighbors. So, I'll talk a little bit about the work we've done with the village of Manuka on my next slide. Um, but we have had a public community meeting and talked to neighbors one-on-one as well with this project. Uh, next slide, please. So, our engagement with the village of Monoka has been very critical to this project to date. Um while Muka is not the authority having jurisdiction, Will County is obviously um it is within the 1.5 mile planning boundary radius of Monuka um and it is within Monuka's comprehensive plan as a future potential area for solar. So before we went through the Will County process, it was very important to us that we worked with Manuka and found out what their vision and need was for incorporating solar into their planning boundary. So we have already gone through their conditional permitted use process and we did also enter into a pre-anaxation agreement with the village of Manuka. Um the conditions of both of those agreements are stated on the slide here. Um so we could run through those quickly. Um but the pre-anexation agreement essentially what that is is in the event that the

land next to it becomes contiguous making this parcel contiguous it would automatically be annexed and there is a payment in lie of tap-on fee that we're making with the village of Manuka. um as well as a park contribution fee. Um the planning and zoning commission did unanimously approve our CPU in January and we are expecting board approval in just a few days on the 28th. Next slide, please. Okay, I want to walk you through the site plan. This is difficult. Do you all have a site plan in front of you or no? It's just hard to see on the screen all the details, but I'll do my best. Um, so a couple things I want to draw your attention to are you can see that we had these panel rows bifurcated into two separate sections. The reason for that is because I have three pipelines on this site. So pretty difficult design engineering feat. So congrats to engineering here. Um, but those uh those pipelines also have fairly large setbacks. So we're fully avoiding those. And that also explains the fixed tilt design. Um, in that fixed tilt configuration, we're able to fit a few more rows than we would be able to if the panels were moving. Um, we also have the access road coming off of West Shepley Road on that southeast corner. That's also where the electrical equipment is located. And then the point of interconnection is just across the road on West Shepley. And all of that interconnection will be underground. So you will see some padmounted electrical equipment, but there will be no new poles going in for that interconnection. Um, finally, let's see. We added that access gate on the northern end as we discussed um per some conversations with Manuka Fire Department. So, that's just an emergency access if there are responders in there and they need to get out. Um, and then the site is fully avoiding all flood planes and wetlands. I think that's it. We can talk more about it if you have questions. Next slide, please. All right. Just wanted to throw a few renderings up here so you have a little bit of an idea of what this might look like. So, here's an aerial view. Something I want to call your attention to is just the existing tree screening on the east. Next slide.

This next slide is east looking west. Um again you can see that tree screening and you can also see there are two residential homes directly to the east there within that tree screen. Next slide please. This is on the west on I 80 looking east. Next slide. And this last one is if you were traveling east down West Shepley Road. You'd look out your driver's side window to the left there and you'd see the panels. Next slide, please. All right. I know Will County sees a lot of solar, so I won't spend too much time on the components, but essentially, we're going to have some bfacial panels, which means that they're able to absorb sunlight on both sides, take advantage of the reflection. Uh, fixed tilt trackers, like I talked about, 20° tilt angle, south facing, and then still racking. These are pile driven, ground mounted, so no, you no concrete ballast system or anything like that. Next slide, please. You're also going to have inverters and transformers on the site. Um the inverters are what convert the energy from DC to AC to make it usable in our homes and businesses. The transformers change the voltage. Um typically pad mounted. We have it on a concrete pad here. Sometimes that's gravel mounted. Um very typical to what you're going to see outside of a business or a school. Next slide, please. We also do have a wildlife fence surrounding the entire perimeter of the site with two different access points. This is, you know, featuring wood or metal post. It's a woven galvanized mesh commonly used for high-v value crops and has a low visual profile. This is typically preferred um not only by neighbors who find it more aesthetically appealing than a barbed wire, but also by the NRI and the EcoAT recommendations as well. Next slide, please. Um just to quickly overview the environmental impacts and pollinator planting here. We are avoiding all the wetlands. We are meeting all the recommendations of the NRI and the EcoAT as Alec discussed. And then we also are

using a pollinator friendly seed mix and that is in compliance with the pollinator friendly solar sight act. Next slide please. Okay. Screening. I want to talk a little bit about this. I know screening is a big deal especially for neighbors. So as I mentioned there is that existing tree screen to the north and the east which you can see. So this rendering has no added trees. This is just existing vegetation. Next slide. All right. On this one um so I want to talk about screening on West Shepley Road is this is you know a main road that is used by village residents. Um there are two complications with screening on the entirety of West Shepley Road. Um, so the first that I'll talk about here is the fact that West Shepley Road is above grade from the project area. So in the first rendering on the top, I'm showing trees at year 1. They're 6 feet high. You can obviously see the project as you would even if you were at level with the project. But you can also see in the second picture, which is the bottom picture, at year 10 when the trees are 24 feet high, you can still fully see the site. And so that is one of the big constraints with screening on West Shepley Road is that even if we put trees in, you're going to be able to see this project simply because it's above grade. We go to the next slide, please. The second constraint with screening on West Shley Road, as you can see in the site plan, although I know this is small and difficult to see, is that we have those pipelines. So three big pipelines running right through the site. I can't put trees in the ema area on those pipelines. So even if the road wasn't above grade, we cannot put anything within that area besides a fence. Um so no trees can go in those ement areas. So what I did, we worked with Manuka very closely. We worked with the neighbors to the east and we all agreed that screening one to the east, even though there is that existing tree screen, we want to fill it in, make sure it's nice and lush and dense for the residents to the east there. So you can see on this vegetation plan, we're going to put in some evergreens there. And then we're also going to screen on West Shepley Road around the electrical equipment. So between that first easement area and the

access road where the electrical equipment is, we'll have some nice evergreens going in there as well. And this has been approved again both by the neighbors and the village of Muka. Next slide, please. Um, as Alec mentioned, we did do a noise study. Noise from the facility is expected to be inaudible. Next slide. Uh, vegetative maintenance. Um, so we always like to do a cover crop prior to construction. and it's better for the soil. We never remove soil from the site. Um we do do a permanent seating of a sight appropriate pollinator mix. And then when possible and feasible, we do like to graze under the panels in a rotational grazing uh mechanism. I'm sure you've seen that before in Will County. It is our preferred method. Um when that's not um appropriate for the site or when um it's not enough or sufficient, we will use mowing as a secondary means of uh vegetative control and then chemical application as a third when necessary. Um, we also do do mowing outside of the fence line perimeter where we can't have sheep. So, sheep would be within where the panels are and then the mower would go outside of the perimeter. Next slide, please. Um, the project will be decommissioned at the end of its useful life and it in accordance with the agricultural impact mitigation agreement which we have already executed with the state and submitted as part of this permit application process. The land will be restored to its previous use to the extent possible and practical and of course we'll be posting that decommissioning security per that requirement of the AMA. Next slide please. Just want to run through some of the benefits that the project is bringing. Um so of course the increased tax revenue for Will County and the village of Muka. Um the calculation that I'm showing is this is a 2,639% increase in property tax. So quite a bit of money coming in from this project. Um, also of course job creation and local spending during construction. Uh, one thing I really like to emphasize and one of the reasons that I love working

on community solar is that it is a local source of energy for the community. So unlike really big projects that are, you know, hooking up to these transmission lines with a distribution level project like this, it is interconnecting at the local grid. The electrons are serving the local residents and we have entered into a subscription exclusivity period with the village of Manuka. So, we've committed to providing those residents with a 30-day exclusivity period for subscriptions for the community solar project. Once that 30-day window has closed, it will then open up to the broader KOME community. Um, of course, there are energy savings for subscribers wrapped up within that and this being a community solar project, which is also enhancing energy equity. Um, it's a productive use of the land. And then, you know, finally, solar is a really good neighbor. So, in comparison to virtually any other use, solar is very quiet. It doesn't produce any toxins or odors. Um, it's clean. There's very minimal traffic. It's a nice it's a nice neighbor to have next to you, especially when well screened. Next slide. And that's all I have. So, any questions you have for me?

I have one question. Are you shovel ready? Are we shovel ready? Like, are we ready to go to construction? No, we are not. Okay. Yeah, we'll have to go through all the building permit process first. We get to final designs. These are only 5% design sets, so we'll have to get all the way up to those 90s. Thank you. Yeah. U Thank you very much for your presentation. We're going to go ahead and call for a vote.

Okay, that's it. Okay, great. Thank you. a a case number CC-25-141 or 142 um at all. Please I would like to have a motion 256

second with the three conditions you said. Okay. I have a motion to second have a roll call. Kimberly Mitchell. John Kefner. Yes. Roger Bentonhausen. Yeah. Matt Garland. Yes. Karen Warick no and Hugh Steen yes passes item 3-26-20

second Kimberly Mitchell yes John Kefner yes Roger Betttonhousen Matt Garland Karen Warick. Yes. And Chairman Houston. Yes. Item 6-021.

Second. Kimberly Mitchell. Yes. John Kefner. Yes. Roger Betttonhousen. Yes. Matt Garland. Yes. Karen Warick. Yes. And chairman Hugh Stippen.

Yes. I must use the facility. So, I'm going to declare five minute recess. That way, I don't have to get in the middle of vote that's half taken. I'm going to declare a fivem minute recess right now. I'm sorry I laughed at you, Roger. Sorry, I laughed at you.

You did? Well, when you voted yes, I I chuckled and I should not have done that. I want to get fined or thrown at the table. Isn't that funny? Not really funny. Yeah, funny. Kind of sad. provide it.

I guess we can't talk about a case during uh break, but have you seen any facilities in Will County that have being grazed? I don't believe I have either. I have a neighbor that said he would love to graze one, but he's he said he's contacted several, and I don't think any of the ones that I've heard that asked for grazing have been built. It's a talking point. I don't think you'll see. I just saw pictures. I just saw over the pictures. I see a lot of things.

No, the the neighbor I talked to, he he knows sheep producers that are doing it, big ones. And I I talked to another sheep producer downstate and he raises sheep like crazy. And I asked him if he'd be interested in doing. He goes, "Actually, tell you the truth, I only re raise sheep because my kids got into them 20 years ago." He goes, "I prefer to eat pork and beef." He goes, "It sounds insane, but we still have 40 head of sheep." He goes, "And I spend nobody that shears them saves the wool. It's useless." I got a couple of Serbian friends.

Well, there's certain areas But but from what I've read, if you if you want to sell the wool for value, you can't have uh any impurities.

Hairless sheep.

I don't know, right? Mark money would have gotten into a business selling pollinator seed about 10 years ago. You'd be making a killing because out at the moment one time I was talking to the naturalist. He says, "Well, we'd like to put in more native prairie." He goes, "But there's such a shortage of seed. The most we can get is like 10 20 acres a year." So I don't know where they getting all this seed. I mean, who's ramping up the seed production? Good question.

I know uh like groups like Pastation Foundation do a lot with that. Um decade now for a farm out Montgomery but we had a big push for I think so parcels you know prair species population

what the one naturalist did I looked at it both ways in the election not remember the prairie I 294. They don't want to get more than 20 to 25 miles away from their territory. Otherwise, you're getting not you're getting too far. So, yeah.

They can't get enough either.

I guess I should go to bed. Did he say whe that's That's scary. It's good. The only thing interesting question

Stop. All the rain cleared the area.

Never ringed at my house. I let the dog out. I drove into Manhattan when the road was wet. And I saw the sidewalk were a little dry. But then when I got north of Manhattan, there was standing water where they had done some excavating on the road ditches and everything. So it got even wetter there. temperature. That's for sure.

We want to experience winter again, we just do another meeting over the Renaissance Center.

There's one over one over that we do. There's one right on the east side of Monique. I would imagine that it's right here. Um, yeah. Yeah, there's more to it.

So, what's the next case going to be? Mon son is the next one. 25-114 Well, this all here is for fun,

I guess. All I noticed from that picture is I got a face for radio. Face for radio. I don't look good in print. I got all the ball stuff. And look, look at those scabs on the top of my head. I hit a table. I was painting the floor and I bam right into a table. I leave with my head.

I should wear a bike helmet. But they can only cross examining so long. If they're hammer on something, it's like move on, move on.

There's always been there's always been that possibility. That's what they were told years ago. I have to ask question. Chris told me about three years ago the state that they are allowed to cross. He was always stop. He said if they press the precedent is there and this is what just what these people did.

They're going to crush salmon. They're just do ours. We had to vote. Yeah. Oh, no. We voted no last. We voted no last time, didn't we?

Oops. Oh, I can get it. Note to self, I've been drinking Smart Water for 5 years. I don't think it's working.

Oh, I keep refilling at the tap, though. Recess is over. Thank you all for your indulgence. Our next case tonight is case number ZC-26-011V-26-112 and V-26123. So yeah, I'm not sure who's saying the case for us. Oh, Margarite.

Yes. I believe the zoning case up is ZC25114, which is a special use permit for a commercial solar energy facility needs to be Monise on one and two.

Correct. So I will present um you guys can listen and look up um the staff report that you guys have in your packets. Um, so this zoning case takes place in Mooney Township. The property is located at the southeast corner of South Will Center Road and South or West Court Street in Mon. Uh, South Kirsten Road is the eastern boundary of this property. The owners are Paul Hanky, which is 50% interest, and Karen Griffith, who is also 50% interest. Um the agent is Matt Walsh of Mooney Sun one of three

and Mooney Sun 2 and the attorney is Nick Stanford of Shane Banks here on behalf of James Griffin. Um next amp is the applicant proposing to construct two 5 megawatt commercial solar energy facilities. Um they're named Mo Sun 1 and Monson Sun 2 within 78 acres of 156 acre parcel um that will be part of the state's community solar program. And the applicant completed their application February 17th of this year. And also like the previous solar facility has um provided written waiverss acknowledging that this meeting is beyond the 60-day state mandate. It is by three days. Um, so I do want to point that out. And then this case is set to continue forward to the county board within 30 days after the conclusion of tonight's meeting. Um, should it conclude tonight. Um, and that would be within the 30 days. Uh, the applicant is looking to lease the property up to 45 years if all options of the lease are executed. And I do want to point out to a correction within the staff report or clarification rather um that these two sites are proposing to meet the ground cover vegetative plant height requirement of no taller than 13 in and mow five times between May and October um by planting fescue grasses and clover. Um so page four of the staff report the fourth bullet bullet point down mentions native pollinator seed mixes which is an error. um it should reflect grasses and clover. Um but they are looking at the native varieties that are appropriate for this area. Um that being said, looking at the site, we have the aerial on the screen. So the property um is outlined in blue and I mentioned it's 156 acres. The proposed area to be developed with the two solar facilities

is the red dashes. So it's the southern part of the property. The site is planning on having their main access along South Kirsten Road to the east where the village of Mooney has jurisdiction over this road and would grant the permit for access and any right-of-way work would likely require permits from the village as well. There are no flood zones or excuse me there's a flood zone identified in the center of the northern half of the property and you can kind of see the darker area in the center. Um per our GIS records that indicates a flood zone. Um the applicant site plan actually shows farmland wetlands throughout this site and inventoried wetland maps that the county has actually shows um the wetlands just north and at the southeast corner of the property. But the applicant um doing their site due diligence is anticipating wetlands continuing onto the property and by visuals it looks like that could be the case. Um and further review of the wetlands and flood zones is required as part of the building process. So they would continue um looking at those wetlands to make sure that the developments staying outside or any um impacts to them would be mitigated. The zzoning map on the screen we have the property again outlined in blue and this surrounding area is mixed between agricultural commercial and residential districts between unincorporated wool county which is the solid colors and the village ammon which is the hatch marks. Um so the village of Mooney the different zoning districts are called out on the screen. We have R1 um to the north. We have some C1 commercial and R1 to the uh north as well as the east. And then we have some A1 E2 within Will County um to the south. So the next couple slides will just show some aerials of the property um from the site visit. So this is looking at the

property from Kirsten Road. This is looking from Will Center Road. This is looking along north and south Kirsten Road. And looking north and south along Wool Center Road. Well, center road in this area is under the jurisdiction of Bo County DOT and DOT has commented that they would not grant any entrance or access permits to the site which is why the applicant reached out to the village of Mooney to um consider Kirsten Road as the access point. This is looking at adjacent properties across W center road. So some of that R1 um within the village of Mooney. This is adjacent property looking across Kirsten Road. So this would be looking east. So in terms of solar um commercial solar facility applications, the items on the screen are what is required to consider a complete application with the county. Um so the items as mentioned previously in red are the Illinois state sighting requirements. So setbacks are statemandated. the fencing height um is mandated by the state as well as the height of the panels are capped by the state and the county cannot be more restrictive than that. The items in the blue are um what the state statute has allowed the counties to require and will county has entertained to require um showing compliance with um pretty much all the items or at least permit submit studies and um reports looking at that they're not impacting endangered species that are found in the area or um historical properties or archaeological sites um things of that nature. So, I'm just going to briefly run through this list. Um, so the applicant has submitted a complete application. Um, if approved, the solar facility would be required to

continue to follow the county's zoning commercial solar energy facility requirements under the zoning ordinance. Um, continual maintenance and landscape upkeep is required as part of the zoning ordinance. Regarding the application submitts, um, per the FAA, no flight hazard determination, um, no flight hazards were determined based on several different points that the applicant actually submitted to the FAA to take a look at. However, these reports required a form 74602 be e filed within 5 days after construction reaches its greatest height, which is something that's typical with um certain projects and things like that just to verify that they are compliant with the FAA standards. The Will South Cook Soil and Water Conservation District NI NRI or Natural Resource Information Reports 5609 and 5619 provided the same LISA score. Again, they had separate um NRI reports due to the two different projects they are proposing for a solar facility on the site. Both Lisa scores were um calculated out at 15 or 158 which is equivalent to the count country area and productive farmland category. Um some of the full NRI report looked at um that there's about six and a half acres of wildlife habitat, excuse me, wetlands and there is a high water table within the 6 and 1/2 acres. Um they have requested that field tiles be rerouted rather than abandoned. And the developer to point out is required to continue working with the district to um write a conservation plan that is appropriate for this property and that would be submitted at time of building permit. The EcoAT report recommended pollinator friendly habitats be planted as ground cover to decompact the site prior to planting the ground cover um to

maintain, you know, paying attention to the site management for the pollinators. And then also mentioned that a 6in critter gap at the base of the fence that is wildlife friendly um should be included and staff has added a condition to require that 6-in critter gap at the bottom. The trees also should not be cleared unless it's between November 1st and March 31st to ensure that um the bat species in the area is um out of the area when they take out the trees. The US Fish and Wildlife Service um IPAC identified nine species. The applicant hired Stantech Consulting Services to review those identified resources as well as look at the EcoAT which is actually the more um technically correct and more appropriate um just because it's specialized in this area. The EcoAT acknowledged adverse effects were unlikely. Um the shipo letter submitted that or the applicant contacted the state historic preservation office and the letter that the state the shipo um submitted exempted the project from further consultation as the site is not um historically does not contain historic properties or shows high probability of archaeological resources. Um, Stantech also reviewed the noise um that the facilities or equipment on the site would generate and found them to follow the Illinois Pollution Control Board standards. The manufacturing specification sheet show that the developer is intended on using the UL or United Laboratory certified or compatible certified equipment um which is again another zoning ordinance requirements. Um, again, Stantech reviewed and found no glare to be produced on site. And in addition, the solar panels are typically coated with an anti-reflective coating to reduce the glare. Um, these types of panels are

supposed to absorb the sunlight and not reflect them. So, anything that or when these panels are constructed, they're trying to reduce the glare off these panels because then it's less energy that they're harvesting. Um, the applicant has also executed an interconnection agreement with COMMED that was dated May 16th of 2023. The proposed points of interconnection are along the access drive where the applicant is proposing two riser poles to tie into KMED's infrastructure to be constructed on site. Um, however, staff wanted to point out staff did not recommend a condition to allow this. Um, the applicant may come for you. They are here tonight to argue that they add a condition to allow those two riser poles. Um but the county does require underground interconnection um as well as throughout the panels and um did not feel that a condition to allow that would be appropriate. Um road districts involved include Will County DOT and the village of Mooney and as mentioned will county um is not looking at will center road as the point of entrance for the site. the road survey and road use agreement that are typically required um for zoning are due at the time of permitting and this is usually part of the access permits that the road districts require when they issue the access permit. The agricultural impact mitigation agreement was executed with the department of agriculture in March 26 of 2024. And like the previous solar case before you, the AMA stipulates the financial assurance that comes to the county as well as the timelines for the engineers cost of deconstruction. And all that's coming around the time of permitting or shortly after the permits issued um based on the timeline that's outlined in that agreement. And of course, the preliminary operation maintenance plan

and emergency response plans um both are conceptual at this point in time. um proof of liability insurance and redacted leases and deeds were also submitted um completing their application. So the site plan we have on the screen I highlighted in green the proposed areas that they are showing screening requirements. Each facility would be remotely monitored um again creating very little traffic as many of the other solar facilities before you. Um the occasional visit to the site would be for site maintenance or improving uh repairing panels, equipment, um maintaining the ground cover. Combined, there will be about 23,000 modules in row space about 10 to 16 feet apart on a single axis tracking system. So unlike the previous solar facility that you heard tonight, these actually would follow the sun throughout the day. The panels will not exceed 20 ft in height and max tilt. And the equipment pads would be centrally located between the two facilities. The pads generally are where the transformers and inverters are going to be located and the loudest site or source of noise on the property. Um the site plan also shows meeting the 50-oot setbacks from the right ofway and property lines. And um you can see based on the green highlighting area, they are proposed screening along uh Will Center Road as well as Kirsten. And then there is a residence um to the north west that they are proposed screening from that location as well. Um currently they are proposing 154 planted arbor vites along a row. Um, I just want to point out that currently this would not meet the county's landscape diversity requirements. Um, typically if more than 30 trees are used, a mixture of three or more trees must be used. And then same thing with shrubs. If 50 shrubs or more would be used, a mixture of three or more shrub

species must be used. So screening needs to occur when non-participating residences are within 300 ft of the facility. um unless those residences wave those screening requirements by submitting an affidavit saying they're okay with it not being screened. The applicant is proposing the seed mix um shown on the screen. It is a little blurry but again it's the different um types of grasses that they're proposing very standard for um pollinator friendly seed mixes for grasses um that are provided and recommended by the natural resource um agency and again Forbes different types of flowers and these would be limited to 13 in in height. Um looking at the screen here, like the previous solar case, the um special use criteria and standards are no longer applicable based on that recent court decision in equity. Um so regarding that, I will not go through all these criteria. Regarding the agency comments, the only one I wanted to bring up that is um they are not contiguous to this request, but they did provide comments and that's the forest preserve. They don't have major concerns regarding the proposed plans, but would like to highlight the importance of incorporating sustainable practices into the development, encourage the developer to select and install native species whenever possible, and they are interested in future collaboration with the site operator to monitor wildlife mortality incidents at the property. Again, they're curious of birds um if birds strike the panels or um what kind of impacts to the native um wildlife in the area that these would have. DAP is recommending approval of the special use permit for the commercial solar energy facility with four conditions. Um again, condition three is just to um encourage that they collaborate with the forest reserve

district um regarding the wildlife mortality. So share their records. Typically solar facilities do document that um internally. Um and we just ask that they share that with a forest preserve district. Um and then the bottom six inches of the fence be kept open to allow for wildlife to pass through it um per the department of natural resources ecoat report. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Anybody have any questions? Where where do you say the access roads are going to be off of Kersonen or Court Street? Um it would be off Kirsten to the east. Has Mooney already agreed to that or are they just considering?

Um I do believe the applicant has had conversations with the village of Mooney regarding that. Um last I saw with the correspondents is Mooney was reviewing all that. Um ju just an observation I I know I don't know how many of these proposals we've listened to 50 60 whatever it is and previously we always refer to them as uh solar farms which they really aren't a farm and now we're starting to refer to them as commercial solar energy facilities. Is there a reason for that or basically mitigation or?

No. In 2023 when the state came down with their first um solar state mandates, they renamed solar farms the commercial solar energy facilities and um probably from the county's lack of paying attention to the proper name. Uh we just kind of used the collo colloquial um solar farm for commercial solar energy facility. um interchangeably with what they are with which is a commercial solar energy facility. I I just figured you know calling it a solar farm allowed them the egg assessment and uh so now we're actually starting to call them what they actually are. But they're still allowed Yeah. as a special use and I understand I understand that but it just

just a change in verbiage but there is a distinction isn't there a community and a commercial is that at a certain megawatt break or so commercial solar energy facility would be utility scale or community solar which is what this request is. So this is a community the community one is the one that offers the rebate to the people correct but it's still from a state definition would be a commercial solar energy facility and then the other thing I was going to ask you the screening requirement and the trees is that that's nothing we need to condition that will be sorted out at permit time or

correct so at time of permitting um they do have a lot more opportunities to look at the site to select species that are more appropriate for the site based on working with the conservation plan and the soil and water conservation district. Um, if they want to reach out to the farm bureau, I'm sure they would get a lot of different insights of what's appropriate species for an agricultural field as well as make the choices based on what's available at the local nurseries. um as opposed to conditioning a certain tree or a certain number when if it's one species there's a good chance of failure and it would be a grand failure along certain screening lines lesson with the emerald a dashboard correct and Dutch elm disease

correct I guess we didn't learn our lesson happened to Dutch elm 80 years earlier question regarding since it's going commercial how come we're not requiring this to be reszoned to commercial property instead of agriculture cultal. So part of the state legislation states that this could go in a commercial or an agricultural area as well as industrial. So they do specify that we don't have a lot of say that it can go into an a field provided that they meet the state requirements.

I have I have a question that I've been pondering for a long time. The county accepts a bond with a tear down of this system. How do you know that the electricians aren't going to be making $200 an hour 40 years from now?

So, part of the AMA agreement states that um the decommissioning plan should be submitted to the county. Part of that decommissioning plan includes the deconstruction cost estimate. So engineers take a look at the going rates currently. Um they also forecast what potentially in 40 years from now what the going rates may be. And there's certain uh programs out there, there's certain software, there's certain companies that specialize in this that would look at all this. They put together what the deconstruction cost would be and then that's what the shity bond would be based on. Now the AMA allows a reduced rate based on a timeline. So within the first year we only get 10%. Within the first six years we get 50%. With within by year 11 of operation we get the full 100%. But the AMA also says that by year 10 the county can request an updated engineer's cost estimate. So by year 11, we could potentially get an updated bond that covers the market standards at that time. Um, generally speaking, a lot of the companies look at the 2% long-term inflation rate as what their projection would be for costs of inflated prices. Um, which definitely does not appear to be the case in the last couple years. But with the grand scheme of things, you know, the Fed determines monetary policy and if that's their standard still, um, we don't have a lot to dispute that.

Well, I asked this because, uh, I was electrical contractor for 40 years and still keep in touch with current electricians and with the AI and the data centers and all the things that they're having to do. They say that we're going to need a 180% increase in electricians in the next 25 years. That's a heck of a lot of people. So, I was just asking these questions because I know that this growth pattern is going to happen. Okay. Thank you.

One last. Um, so the bond review every 10 years is optional. That's not mandated. as a decade from now starts.

Yeah. So, in terms of the bond, once it comes to the county, you know, we collect it, we'll we're in process of reviewing that policy and what that looks like because we're just starting to come forward to I think the sixth year operation on the first few that we've approved. But the AMA does say after year 10, we could require updated engineer estimated costs of deconstruction basically every 5 years after that. So, um it's just a matter of staying on point, having a policy or program in place from the staffing side to stay in contact with these companies and make sure that that keeps coming forward and we keep monitoring it. And some of the methods we have is we do have a special use. Um, if they're not compliant, we can notify them that there is a revocation process. If they don't come into compliance, there's ways to get them compliant.

Cost salvage exclusive salvage.

So, salvage value is included. Um, again, it's one of those variables. We don't necessarily know what the market trend will be in the future, but um the AMA does state they can subtract the salvage value. Um most projects I've seen, there's still a pretty large sum that comes to the county for financial insurance to deconstruct. Um but some companies are more liberal in terms of the salvage value. They think they can resell the panels, things like that where it's smaller. And it's something um we haven't really faced in terms of knowing what's a good salvage value, but so far it seems to be fair. Um we haven't had to decommission anything. So we don't really know at this point in time what that if it's correct, if it's accurate, what we'd be like at that point.

Yeah. No one has comm decommissioned anything anywhere. That I don't know. We we did have a we did have a project recently that had a very thick packet of decommissioning. They spelled everything out ours the the I-beams and it I believe it was around a third. The recycling value was about a third of the cost. They had it broke down to like 1.8,600,000 recycling and that was probably their initial. Yeah, it was. Any other questions of Margarit? Thank you ma'am. Okay. the applicants here.

Yeah. Before before you speak, if you may, are there any concerned citizens or objectors to this case tonight? No concerned citizens or objectors to this case. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Please speak then.

Thank you. I'm Nick Standerford. I'm a land use attorney at Shane Banks. Um it's good to be back here. Um this is for the Mon sun one and two solar projects. These are two five megawatt projects. Basically one located on top of the other on the southern portion of a very large uh parcel. Um the land owners are here in the back. We have Paul and Emma back there. Um if you can hold up hold up your other hand. Just kidding. Um uh they're here tonight to support the project and um and I just wanted to point them out. We also have Matt Walsh here from Nex Amp. He's a project developer. He'll be speaking a lot more than I I will here. And then we have Matt Clemente uh from Stantech. He's our engineer.

Uh we're we're pleased to be here tonight uh seeking special use permits for these uh projects. Um I think an important thing to note is I think everyone sees that Mon is right next to the project. Um it's uh just north of the of the property and um uh it sounds like Matt did reach out to Mo. We didn't receive any objections, letter of objections in the packet tonight. Um, we are we do get our access from Mon, so we'll be working handinhand with them uh on that access permit. Um, what I also want to mention um is that the northern part of the parcel is not going to be used for the solar project. A lot of it's encumbered by that big wetland that Margie talked about. There is area for future development, whether that's residential or commercial or whatever. if as the market dictates. I know the land owners, you know, would would would love to have an end user for that for that area. Um, so I just wanted to point that out. Um, another thing I wanted to point out was uh what Margie mentioned about the polls. So, uh, we're asking for some above ground polls. Um, that is a request we'd like to make tonight and I'll let Matt explain why we're making that request. Um, with that, I'll kick it over to Matt to describe the details of the project. Matt knows that you've seen a lot of solar projects here and doesn't want to keep you here all night. So, he'll move he'll describe the project specifically and uh if you want any details about um about the panels or anything like that, he's happy to address it.

Hello, Matt Walsh from Next Amp. Um thank you for having us tonight and considering our project. Um as Nick said, I can be long-winded, so I'll try to keep it brief since you guys are wellversed in uh this type of development. Uh, next slide, please. So, I'll just quickly go over Nexame's background. Um, we'll breeze through the typical solar equipment as you saw in the last application, very similar to ours, and then um review the site plans. Next slide, please. So, a little bit about Next Amp. Uh, Nextamp's um the largest solar community solar developer in the country. Um, we have offices from coast to coast and projects from Maine to Hawaii and everywhere in between. Um, nextam's second largest office is Chicago. Um, we're an over 400 person firm. Uh, over 100 people here in Chicago and um have a significant footprint here in the state. Uh, Next Amp has over 50 projects that have been built. Uh, we've deployed over uh invested more than $2 billion already since 2017 in Illinois and uh continue to do so. Next slide, please. Uh, a little bit about Next Amp. We were founded by two army captains, came back from tours of duty. Felt like a lot of conflict was over natural resources when they were deployed in the Middle East. Um, and when they came back, they uh started a small solar company. Initially, they were doing um residential solar on people's homes and quickly found a niche uh in um community solar. So, we were based in Boston and quickly grew uh out from there. Uh, next slide, please. And just a little bit about Nexamp that makes us a little different. Um, we're an endto-end developer. Um, we work with land owners from the beginning. We sign the leases or purchase the property. We

develop the projects and get all the permits. We construct the projects and we own them and manage them long term. So, Next Stamp is um here to stay in the community and uh we see ourselves as a valuable member of the communities that we join. Uh next slide, please. And it's just some quick uh metrics for us. Um we have over 50,000 customers. We've um deployed more than a million solar panels. We've put in very large orders to uh to have our solar panels and racking and equipment made here in the USA. So, we have a large commitment to using domestically produced materials on the site um which is what this project is contemplating. Uh next slide, please. And while this project doesn't have pollinators, uh nextamp is uh committed to the environment. So, um, some of the things that we've implemented is we've implemented a recycling program. So, as panels break, they get recycled. Um, we have recycling during construction where we have different bins that we put metal, wood, or other materials so they can be recycled appropriately. Um, most of our sites in Illinois have uh, pollinators. Uh, this particular site, we worked extensively with the fire department and um, they decided that pollinators weren't in their favor. So, we've obliged and uh moved forward with um a low grow grass and clover mix on the site. Next slide. And we have one operating project here in Will County. Uh it's the Good Now Road East project. Um 2 megawws. Um and it's set back a little further in the property. Um but very similar design. Uh

we're very familiar with the will county's comments or uh requirements um both during the special use process and during the building permit and construction process. So um to the earlier comment about decommissioning uh we're very familiar with Will Countyy's requirements and the um post 10-year frequency of updated uh estimates and increased bonds as inflation starts to show uh from the initial estimate. Next slide please. um briefly equipment pad. So transformer some string inverters uh the transformer steps up the power from low voltage to um the distribution line voltage that we'll be interconnecting with. String inverters switch the power from DC current to AC current. Next slide please. Um obviously you're familiar with uh solar modules. Um, this project's proposing a farm fence around the perimeter and uh uh piles that are driven into the ground. So again, not much concrete other than corner posts on fence or um on the inverters or the transformer pad that the equipment sits. Otherwise, everything's driven into the ground as far as foundations go. Next slide, please. Um we do remotely monitor these projects. So we have um in in Lawrence, Massachusetts, we have a um a team that manages these sites 24 hours a day. We have a camera that can give us eyes, but we also have data collection that we can see um the performance of the system and um manage the system remotely. And then as Nick had pointed out um we are requesting um several polls to interconnect the project. I think a little different than maybe other solar projects that are connecting their power uh interconnecting with the power lines

uh along a road frontage. This property actually has uh a power line that runs through the field just south of the property line. And uh the poles will be kind of more centrally located into the site rather than along the road frontage. So they're a little bit different than um maybe a typical project that's been through here. Next slide, please. So going through the decommissioning of course we've executed a agricultural impact mitigation agreement. Um we will use that to ensure the dismantling demolition and disposal and recycling of the system once it reaches the end of its useful life. And then just one unique thing is uh the recycling during construction. So we've implemented a rigorous process to um aggregate the materials that are coming off the site, segregating them from uh the types of materials. Um panels are put onto pallets and shipped to a recycler and um metals put into a metal bin and taken to a local recycling facility. Um, and we do receive a certificate from our recycling partners to prove that we've actually recycled the PL panels rather than um them ending up in a landfill. Next slide, please. Um, Margaret did a good job running through all of the items that we submitted, but we've done extensive diligence on this project. We've completed surveys, coordination with state uh federal and um state and federal permitting and we're working on uh as Margarite noted um our access permit with Mooney. So we're in contact with their public works department uh now. Um next slide please. So just briefly where the project's located. Here's an area map. Um the project's located just east of uh the village of Mooney. So money does have uh their municipal limits along a portion

of the uh the west side of the property, along the north side of the property, and along the east side of the property. Um, one thing I'll point out is there, this is a good slide to show it. Um, on the property south of this, I believe there's uh another solar project that's already been permitted uh through Will County. doesn't look like it's been constructed yet, but um this site does have another solar project that another company was proposing just south of us. So, of this approximately 160 acre parcel, um we're proposing to use uh a little less than 80 acres. Um so, the yellow dash line represents the area of work. Um there is a wetland that you can kind of see at the souththeast corner where there's some trees and existing vegetation. Uh we're avoiding any impacts there and um there is kind of some swailes that run through the center of the site and we're keeping everything south of that. Um I will note the residential property that's uh kind of within the red box there that is also owned by our land owners as well. Next slide please. Um, I'll turn this over to my colleague Matt, but um, I just wanted to point out, um, the landscape plan that, uh, Margaret had presented was actually, uh, one that was a little older. We had submitted a newer version, um, with some feedback from staff. And the feedback we received was to keep the landscaping along the west side where there's homes uh, west of the project. and we removed the landscaping that was adjacent to the farm fields to the east. So, uh, just one item that I wanted to highlight there and otherwise I'll turn it over to Matt to walk through the site plan.

Thank you, Matt. I am also Matt. I'm Matt Clementi. I'm a senior project manager with Stantech and we are a uh engineering and consulting firm. Um, I'm a registered engineer with the state of Wiscon uh state of Illinois and and Wisconsin. Um, I just wanted to mention uh a couple of things um with this site plan. Um, one is the uh above ground poles that Matt mentioned. So in the southwest corner um you can see how the access road comes from um Kristen Road on the east comes across the middle between Mon Sun one on the south side and Mooney Sun 2 on the north side. In the middle of the site it hits the equipment pad and the equipment pad is the only noisy uh part of this project um or any community solar project. Um the inverters make a little noise. They have basically cooling fans and they'll sound uh real similar to a a window unit air conditioner, but those are set probably a thousand feet away from any of the residences around the site. And then the access drive continues from that point um to the west almost up to Will Center Road, then turns to the south um still about 200 feet south uh 200 feet before we get to Will Center and that's where our point of interconnection is. So again, as uh Matt mentioned, um we'd like to request the use of poles. The poles won't be at Will Center Road or at uh Kirsten Road. Um they'll be inset into the property um at the location of our interconnection. Um which was uh uh approved by uh Kameed. Um let's see. Uh just to mention a couple other items. Um the solar panels

will not exceed uh 20 ft at full tilt. Um we prepared a noise study um that shows that we won't meet or won't exceed the limit set by the Illinois Illinois Pollution Control Board. Uh the farm fence um will be offset from the ground uh 6 in in uh uh coordination with the um reviewers. Um it's also um uh large openings on that farm. So even above the the bottom of the fence, there's 6 in x 6 in uh openings in that wire. Um also at the time of the building permit will submit a storm water management plan um which will uh conform to the county's ordinance. Um uh earlier the drain tile system was mentioned and uh we will follow the requirements of the AMA and typically on these sites um we enhance the existing uh drain tile system um because some damage does occur during the installation of the of the um trackers. Uh so we will be rerouting some of the uh drain tile um flow around some of the parts of the site. And then um one item that I wanted to mention regarding the decommissioning plan um we do uh prepare estimates on the decommissioning cost. Um I'm I'm heavily involved with those cost estimates. I've probably done a couple hundred of them. And um we do break them down by the number of hours, the number of uh pieces of equipment, the the um the number of laborers. Um we always base those prices on prevailing wages. Uh so it's not trying to get low bids, we're estimating um high on those. And then the other thing to remember is that

even though we we provide a bond uh so that the county is able to do the decommissioning, typically the decommissioning is planned on by next. So when they finish um using the site, when the lease period ends, it's in part of their process to decommission the site. And the goal is for the county to not have to use the decommissioning bond for it to be done by Nexamp. Um, we can go on to the next slide, but that's Oh, the other thing I wanted to mention on this one was the um offsets. They're hard to read, but uh the properties that are um on the opposite side of Will Center Road are about 312 ft from the facility. Uh the one that's up in the corner is around 400 ft. And then um the residence down uh across Kirsten Road down to the southeast is about 628 feet from the facility and it's screened by uh the wetland and then the large trees that are there as well. Uh but we can go to the next slide. Um so erosion control uh we will do throughout construction. Um so a silt fence and then um other um methods to control erosion. In general, our goal is to not take away the existing uh vegetation and then um but until the end of construction and then we put in our seating as we go. And the next slide um construction entrance. This is just some views. uh construction entrance probably isn't real important, but but in general, the goal there is to remove all the mud or or any um dust so it's not tracked out onto the roads. Uh this is uh South Wheel Center looking south. Um the project is on the on the west side there. There it's looking north and

then you can see that the um Will Center has uh power poles along it. And then you can kind of see in the distance on this one the lines they're going across. That's those are the types of ones that we'll be connecting to um on our portion of the site a few hundred feet in. Uh Kirsten Road. This is on the other side of the site. This one's probably looking south. And then um this is the wetland area at Kirsten Road. Obviously the site is completely screened from the from the residents uh in that area and then you can go to the next slide and thank you very much. And one more time from Nick. Thanks guys. Appreciate it. Um so I think the last thing we'll just uh leave you with is um we wanted to kind of leave it up to the this body. Do you would you recommend landscaping on the western side? I know there's a slide back with a few neighbors there. I know that Will County has competing visions of competing views on landscape screening whether you should have it or not. You know, um we we proposed only kind of facing those houses there and those little those little kind of L's. I if you if if this body wants us to put landscaping all down the western side, uh the land the uh developers committed to doing that. The eastern side, there's nothing o over there. Um and as you can see, there's already some uh landscaping there at the uh at the southeast corner. Uh so we don't think it's necessary on the eastern side, but if if if everyone wants it on the west, we can put it there. And so um so that's one thing I wanted to mention. And the last thing was just on the detail about those poles. Um, as Matt said, you know, Comat's pretty far along with their design and the idea is to have those

above ground poles. And this is different as you saw that that there's already power lines and there's already poles that cut through this property. And so these poles would connect into that pole. So it's not the same as, you know, if if we're just running tons of poles for no reason. Those are the reasons we're asking for that um for that uh exemption or whatever you want to call it. And we basically a comed mandate to you, right? Yeah. So I think Margie called it a condition. If if that could be a condition of the special use, we'd really appreciate that. Thank you for your time.

Okay. Once again, I'm going to ask if we any concerned citizens or objectors to this case here tonight. We do have. Okay. Would you please come up, sir? Glad I asked again because I didn't see you the first presentation first.

My name is Robert Arnold. I'm one of the neighbors to the on the eastern side. Um I as they're asking for no trees on that side. I would definitely be against that. um on the western side of that property, the eastern side that east the property to the east is already zoned residential and in the village of Mon. So as for having no barrier there to me to me personally would make no sense because in the future it's going to be houses. So in the future they're going to have to do it anyway I would assume. Number two, the property is very heavily wetlands. There's a lot of water on the property. My family's live sorry my family's lived next door for the last 150 years so I know the property very well. Um and with the village being on all three sides it to me a solar farm doesn't make sense there as I know it's in Mooney's comprehensive plan to be residential with the grade school just straight down south on Wilson Road. So that's my opinion. I know it doesn't matter to the state. So,

did you give your name first, sir? Yes, Robert Arnold. Okay, thank you. So, any other objectors or concerned citizens? Oh, okay. Then we're going to go ahead and take a vote. Couple questions. Yes. Go ahead, Matt. out of curiosity, why is it split?

Yeah, that's a really good question. Um, for community solar, um, the way that the utility tariff is set up is the projects can only interconnect up to five megawatts each. It'd be much easier for us to do one 10 megawatt project, but um, that's just the way that the tariff is set up. That goes back to my original definition of commercial versus community solar. Yeah. And then just one more on the post enclosure. Uh the methodology is sort of like a methodology for like mitigating soil either from installation and or the

I'll just say that the AMA does require decompaction of the site at the end of the project. So it is contemplated but Matt probably can speak better to what that is. Exactly. It's it's in the AMA, so it's a requirement and it is part of our decommissioning um cost estimate, so it's it's accounted for. Thanks. Any other questions from anybody? Yeah, I guess I should should address the overhead polls because I I'm confused as to why we would need to condition it. Usually, you have the condition that says it must be underground unless required otherwise. So, you technically don't have that in there as a commission. So that's conceding that there's overhead poles or am I reading it wrong?

So we started conditioning solar facilities to have on-site power lines and utility connections must be placed underground except where necessary to connect to existing overhead utility lines. Um then we actually were able to have a conversation with KMED and KMED told us that it's not mandated by KMED which was our assumption when we put these conditions on solar facilities. It was more along the lines that when solar developers come forward for interconnection agreements, there's different parts of the process to basically turn on the site and actually connect it to KMED's grid and start providing energy. And each stage there's reviews, there's reports, there's agreements, and there's usually fees to come. And depending on what stage they are, um, again, there's fees, but if they change their design, they're going to have to take back a step and probably pay more fees um to get that. However, um the county does encourage underground connections because they don't want to see the seven riser poles that the developer puts in and then comed comes in and puts in seven riser poles and now you have a farm field that has 14 riser poles where you just had, you know, the standard ones along the road and you have a lot more. Um so they were trying to reduce that by requiring everything to be basically buried. Um but if you wish to add a condition, I would recommend the on-site power lines and utility connections must be placed underground except where necessary to connect to existing overhead utility lines. you could limit it to the two riser poles that their plans show um that they are

providing and KMED would be providing the rest. Um but yeah, and if I understand what the applicants say, normally they're tying in along the road, which is I've heard what 15 or 25 KV, 40 foot poles, but if I understand this right, they're actually tying into one of the higher voltage transmission lines with the lattice towers. Is that what you're saying?

Not exactly. So in terms of voltage class, most projects connect probably at the 12.5 KV voltage class. This will be actually 34.5 KV. So still subtransmission line um still wooden pole that comes out there. The issue is um I think there's seven poles for each project. So 14 total that are being proposed here. Half of those are comed's poles. Those it is very difficult to put those underground. Some in some cases Comet has told us that it it is not possible for them to put those underground for ours. We'd like to have them above ground, but I can see that we can put the next stamp on poles on pads instead of on poles

because as Margarit's saying, most people are livid to the thought of looking at a solar farm. I don't mind looking at them, but the only thing I find offensive of a solar facility, not a farm, is those poles. When I'm driving down the road, I think nothing of that combat pole every 350 ft. But when I come up to this, I'm like, what is this abomination? The seven poles, the seven transform hand, I'm like, what have we just come into here? That's But this is in the corner a little more. And you're saying that it's going to have to happen. Commed says there's no way not to do their setup.

Well, we this is the first time that we heard this uh condition. Um, but on past projects, we've been asked to pad mount equipment. We can do it on our end. We control that. What KMED will say when we say we want these pad mounted at the county's request, I don't know how they're going to respond to that. Um but in those cases that we have made those requests on multiple occasions they've if they are able to pad mount anything they still require a pole or two in order to basically there's the wire and they need to drop it down from the power pole and then down to the ground. So there will be an additional pole or two in in the best case scenario.

Does solar case and air conditioning have anything to do with the commeds poles that are in your rightway though? So, you're correct. Comemed's polls, they can come can put as many riser poles as they need. Um, it's really the developer side to tie in. Um, but it's the commission. If you want to add a condition to allow um either seven or the two that they were showing on plans, you guys can I would recommend adding that condition. We're happy to accept a condition where the the poles that we were proposing for next amp that we own and install can be padmounted. Um the ones that come owns I we don't have control over those. Is there a post project if someone decided the screen then required or is it you were here first so you knew that you were building next? It's more of the latter. Um, if you want to commission that, should that be built for residential and houses fall within 300 feet that there needs to be screening. Um, I mean, I guess you could condition, but the question is how is that enforced,

right? You know,

we we do want to be good neighbors. So, we're happy to install the landscaping on the east side as well if no uh condition later. So many of these. So I just are all the questions done. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a motion to add a condition. I'm going to out and ask staff to read the condition for me so I don't have to make it up ad hoc. She had the exact wording and I'll approve or disapprove of what she says. Okay. So standard uh condition would be on-site power lines and utility connections must be placed underground except where necessary to connect to existing overhead utility lines. That makes sense with the applicant. Correct. And that is the condition I would like to add. Well, I'm a genius.

I'm not touching screening. I'd like I'd like to add an issue for screening at least on the west side because there's a lot of housing on that on the west side.

This is the hard part. You got to come up with some wording. Yeah, the character was from the east side, right? See if I want to do both sides. I want to satisfy both sides. So you would be proposing screening on the west side along Will Center and on the east side along Kirsten. Is that there's a lot of natural screening to the south. There's the wetland area. Okay. But on the north side, there's nothing on the north side because the applicant owns all land the north side which is heavily flood plane or you own the right.

But you're you're Don's gonna want wording though be part of the record. Margaret looks like she might have the wording.

Um in terms of wording, I guess I have a question. And uh there's a couple provisions of the zoning ordinance regarding landscaping. Um one is regarding land use buffers where it would be a landscape area at least 10 ft in width with at least one shrub per five linear feet of land use buffer area plus at least one evergreen tree and one deciduous shade or understory tree per 30 linear feet of land use buffer area. And the shrubs must be at least 3 feet in height at time of planting. Um, we cannot require, well, they could do a solid fence or wall within a 10- foot landscape area where at least one evergreen tree and one deciduous shade or understory tree is required per 30 linear feet. or um they could do in terms of screening just um our general screening requirement which would just be a dense hedge row which would be kind of staff's discretion and what the applicant shows provided on what they're showing for landscaping species. If you wanted to be very specific, you could limit them to one of those options or you could just rely on the zoning ordinance to um apply the screening requirements that are most appropriate, most applicable based on what they're showing with the landscaping that they're providing at time of permit.

Yeah, you could you could say I want foria bushes. What? Foria bushes where you get the yellow in spring. my speech therapist won't let me say that word. So, so I think I was just pointing out there's options available. Um, you could be specific like um the options under land use buffers that they have to provide screening that are compliant with that section of the ordinance or you can just be vague and say they should screen both sides and leave it to um staff at time of permitting. I just wanted to point out the different options we have with the landscape plan.

So your option would read that the applicant must use on the west side and the east side according to that recommendation. Is that too vague or she said we could do it? Well, I mean too she doesn't Okay. What I had written was something like parallel to the west and east side center and Kirsten Road. It somebody could interpret it means it's got to go the whole property

all the way up to Mon Road. some I mean and and if I was in the village of Mo and saw this I'm like no wait they got to go all the way to Mo road and not even on um that's just a quarter not that's why I said parallel to the site project yeah project site I mean in the past we've had screening along the fence line of the project if you wanted to be specific that way along the roads along center and Kirsten and I think that could hit on the intent of what you guys are getting at. Yes, you're that's what you're here for.

The interested party does live norththeast and so the screening on the on the east side is not going to affect him in any way. No, it's not going to affect him currently, but that zone for residential and for that to go up when residential hits there is not it'll be prudent to do it now so that it's already established. Okay, very good. And that's why I wasn't going to attach screening because I was looking at overhead map and I saw no homes that I thought were immediately next to it. There were some on Olandorf Road and there's already natural screening. There are houses right on center.

Will center, but he said he was east. So that takes you over to Kirsten Road. Right. The whole track, everything east across the road is all farmland currently. Unless unless I'm looking at bad Google Earth, but no, there's one house and Court Street. Yeah, that's way that's way north. That's at least a quarter mile plus. Yeah. I don't think it's our job here to kind of look into the future and see what might or might not happen. I I would like to just go ahead and vote on this and I I mean you can you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still going to be a pig. That's my opinion. So I I would like to just let's go ahead and vote on this as is and get it over with. I'd still like to do the screen.

I will second her motion for and I guess you have to re I'll second her motion for the condition. Yeah, a conditional screening. So So let's do it in order. Okay. So we are adding two conditions. Condition number one as stated um for the polling that staff had stated and we voted John Kefner motioned. I need a second to add it please. We never voted on it. No we did not. I don't think she's here. Okay. So Kim Mitchell second and a vote for that. Yes, please.

Okay. So for that vote to add as condition number five for the poll. Okay. Kimberly Mitchell. John Kefner. Yes. Roger Bettinhousen. No. Matt Garland. Yes. Karen Warick. And Hugh Stippen. Yes. Okay.

Okay. So now we're at the second condition that we're adding. Karen Warick made a motion to add in regards to the um fence line buffers. Okay, so Karen Warick made a motion. May I have a second? John Kefner. And now we'll vote for that one. Kimberly Mitchell, yes. John Kefner, no. Roger Bettinhousen, no. Matt Garland. Yes. Karen Warick and Hugh Stippen.

Yes. That passes also. It's four to two.

We got D. Keep us in line. Mr. Chairman, if there's no other discussion or to special use. Yes, that if there's no other discussion or uh conditions to be added, I would make a motion. ZC25-114, special use 25-046, approval of a special use permit for commercial solar energy facility with the four conditions noted by staff and two added by the commission. Second motion to second. May I have a roll call, please? Kim Mitchell, yes. John Kefner, yes. Roger Bettton,

yes. Matt Garland, yes. Karen Warick, no. And Hugh Stippen, yes. Passes. We're not going to get out of here before dark.

We're making you, Blake. And I just just brushed it like hell. Okay. Oh, yay. Another solar fire. Oh, solar facility. Energy Development LLC to our last two cases. Attorney worried we're going to forget to vote. Our next case tonight is case ZC-25-141. How did I see that?

Time to speak. They're going for seven in the middle. And Alex is our presenter.

Uh, so I'll be presenting ZC2141. The owner is Vander Nord Properties LLC. Uh Ryan Xandstra uh and Melanie Xandra each have 50% interest. The agent is uh Victoria Day of One Energy Development LLC. Uh the attorney is Courtney Kennedy of Earman Galbbackger and Considine LLC. The applicant is requesting a special use permit for commercial solar energy facility with two variances for number of required mowings and plant height. this. Okay, there it goes. Uh, so this is an aerial view of the subject property. The parcel is outlined in red. The property is improved with a two-story workshop, two deer stands, and a pond. Uh, the parcel is within Cree Township. Uh, the village of Cree, village of Steager, and Sock Village um are all within a mile and a half radius of the subject property. Uh, this is the zoning map of the property. Uh the subject property is zoned A1. Per the PLA survey. The property is a total of 33 acres in size with 346 feet of lot frontage along Volder Breck Road. Uh the property is deemed to be a conforming A1 parcel. Uh this is section of the PL survey showing the property boundaries and this is the site plan. So, the applicant is proposing a 2 megawatt uh commercial solar energy facility with approximately 4,900 panels. The panels will be mounted on single axis tracking system allowing them to rotate to capture the sun. Uh the applicant is proposing to use existing driveway to allow access to Voler Road. A road survey prepared in conjunction with Creek Township Road uh district will be required at the time of permitting. uh two equipment pads are are proposed that

will contain the inverse and transformers. Both equipment pads are proposed to be located towards the northeastern portion of the property away from any structures. A noise study was submitted as part of the application stating that expected noise levels will fall under the Illinois uh pollution control board no noise regulations. A glare analysis was conducted that showed no glare was predicted. The applicant submitted correspondence with comment showing progress towards entering into interconnection agreement. Staff has added a condition requiring the submitt of complete interconnection agreement at the time of permitting. The applicant completed uh this application on February 17th, 2026. The applicant did submit a written statement waving their right to have their case heard at public uh hearing with within 60 days and have a decision uh made by county board within 30 days. And then so this is the view looking at the subject property from Volder Breck Road. Uh this is view looking at the access drive uh to the subject property from Volder Road. Uh this is view looking at the southeastern portion of the property. Uh this is view looking at the northeastern portion of the property where solar panels are proposed. Uh this is view looking at the existing building on the property. This is view looking north down Voldeer Road. This is view looking south down Volder Road. Uh and then uh so this is the applicant has submitted all the requirement sub uh submitts for the case to proceed to public hearing. The applicant has submitted a complete application which includes all the listed documents shown on the screen. The application is not considered complete until approvals are received by each uh listed item on the screen. Uh and then yeah due to the equity solar uh case the list of special use criteria is not applicable as we mentioned before. Uh and then this is the for the variance request or review based on the criteria

outlined on the screen. Uh and so this is uh the same the state encouraging uh solar energy facilities to use pollinator friendly species and for the native plant species to grow effectively they need to grow higher than 13. So similar uh for the other case uh the one uh 142 uh and then uh staff did not receive any comments from uh agencies notified. The NRI report gave the property a lease a score of 132 out of 300 placing potential growth and incorporated areas category. As part of the perame process, uh staff will require the applicant to work with the soil conservation district to develop a conservation plan. Um and then so staff is recommending approval of the special use permit with three conditions shown on the screen and approval of the two variances requested. I can answer any questions. I have no questions. Anybody have any questions? No questions. Okay. Thank you. Are there any objectors or concerned citizens to this case? There are not. Okay. May I hear from the principles? Uh, good evening everyone. Um, my name is Victoria Day. Um, and I'm an associate on our one energy team. It's really nice to meet you all and be here tonight. Um, I'm really excited to be here and discussing this project at the solar near the village of Cree. Um you heard earlier from my colleague Mcklla Blandon. She told you a little bit about um kind of the history of One Energy and uh the projects we've developed in the

state and across the nation and the Midwest. Um and this is the first proposals that we've given here in Will County. So we're really excited to be um in front of the board today giving these proposals. Um so a little bit about this project. Alec gave a great in um overview, but just to tell you a little bit more um this project is located like you mentioned off of Volre Road um in unincorporated Will County near the village of CIT. Um our land owners is Vanderord Properties LLC owned by Ryan and Melanie Xandstra. Uh they're local land owners. They live next to the project area and they've been a real pleasure to work with through the process. Um the parcel area is around 32 acres, but the solar facility that we are proposing today is only using 10 of those acres. Um so like I mentioned, our land owners are local. They use the rest of the parcel for um farming and their business. Um their daughter operates a flower farm out of the parcel, so she'll be able to continue those operations um alongside the solar facility. Uh we're zoned as A1. It's currently used for agriculture. And uh the project will be connecting to the comed distribution grid. Um and we're also slating this project to take part of the Illinois shines program. So this is designed as a community solar project. So residents and uh comed utility payers would be able to subscribe to this project. Um the project is a 2 megawatt AC project and uses single access tracking panels. Uh at 2 megawatts AC, it's expected that the project will generate enough electricity to power about 370 homes. And we're here tonight asking for a special use permit with variances for mowing and vegetation height, which I'll tell you a little bit more about um why we're asking for those variances in particular. Um and then the earliest estimated online date that we're seeing for this project would be summer of next year. You could go to the next slide, please. Thank you. Um so just to tell you a

little bit about the engagement that we've done to date with this project. Um I know you've seen the studies that we've submitted with this project but we've also engaged with different agencies including uh the forest preserve the department of natural resources uh the fire department and our authority and the project has been reviewed for different impacts in the environmental impacts noise glare impacts and visual impacts as well. Uh we also hosted a community meeting to engage with our neighbors. So, we invited our neighbors to come and meet with us, ask any questions they have, take their feedback prior to us even submitting our special use permit. Um, and we also have a second workshop that we're planning in May, uh, to further meet with our stakeholders, and, uh, now that the project's a little further in its design, give them updated information and take their feedback as well. Go to the next slide, please. Thank you. Um, so this is the site layout for the project, and I'll just take you through some of the callouts of what you're seeing here. Um so all the way on the left you have Volere road which is where we will be accessing the project. Um there is an existing access drive to the project that we will be using and extending into our solar array. Uh we'll also be interconnecting the project to the KMED distribution grid um on Volulrect road. Um so we are designing this project to use padmounted interconnection equipment and connect to the existing poles via an underground wire. Um, a couple other call outs from this project. Um, since the energy is going onto the distribution grid, uh, this project will serve the local load. Local homes and businesses will use the energy uh, created by this project. Um, this is different than the first project that we presented tonight in that it's a single access tracking project. Um, so our panels are arranged north to south and they'll track east and west throughout the day to kind of follow the sun um, and capture more energy. Uh there are no

wetlands, no flood planes on this parcel. And uh if you see on the site layout, the black outlines, those are for buildings around the parcel. Um so there's some residents along Vulchre Road. Um and then the building that you see on the parcel is not a residence. That's a building owned and operated by our uh local land owners. Uh we're also proposing vegetative screening for the site. Um Alec, if you don't mind just going back one slide really quickly. Thank you. Um so if you see on the western side of the fence uh that green box there is vegetative screening that we are uh prepared to commit to um as part of the project. Um I'll show you in a little bit but on the aerial imagery you can see it much better. But there is a lot of existing screening on the site. So this is just extra to kind of further solidify the low visual impact that we'd like to have on the site. Okay. So, this is um a street view photo of the um driveway entrance. So, this is how we would be accessing the project. And you can see the trees are kind of surrounding the um the site driveway. And then if you go to the next slide, uh this is another photo from Street View taken a little bit further south than the first photo of the driveway. So you can see the pond that's at the front of the street and then the trees on the side and um you can kind of if you really really look closely you can see a little bit of the commercial building that um is in front of where the solar array would be and then the solar array is behind that. So it's really not visible from East Fulchre Road and then um we're also putting in additional trees as another barrier um to the residences that are off of the road. So here you can see the screening a little bit better with the aerial

imagery. So I have outlined in red the existing screening that is already there on the property. Um so some trees on our north, a little bit on the northeast, our south and our west. And then in the green box is the proposed screening that we will be adding um through evergreen trees for the property. Um, and then I know you've heard a lot about the components of a solar project tonight. So, just to walk you through really quickly, uh, this is also planned to be bfacial panels. So, they'll kind of be double-sided, be able to capture energy from both sides. Uh, this project will use single axis tracker, so the panels will move throughout the day to capture more energy. Um, and then pile driven steel racking. Uh, pretty standard for the solar projects that you hear. Uh and then inverters, transformers, they're going to be the same as well. Padmounted transformers um are inverters as well. Um that you know produce a little bit of noise. So we did submit a noise study as well. Um and if you don't mind going to the next slide. Um so the fencing that we're proposing for this study is going to be an agricultural fence. So you have your wood or metal posts uh with the woven galvanized mesh between them. These are pretty common, pretty low visual profile. Um tend to be preferred by our neighbors. Um and also we received the recommendation from the department of natural resources through our ecoat as well as the forest preserve to include wildlife fencing. So a gap around the bottom of the fence to allow wildlife to pass through. And we are committing to including that with our fencing for this project. So environmental impacts like I mentioned there are no wetlands on site and uh we're prepared to meet the requirements of the ecoat and the NRI

that were submitted. Uh this site will use pollinator friendly seed mix in compliance with the pollinator friendly solar site act. Um so this uh this seed mix is uh kind of designed to be native and um prairie plants that kind of bring ecological benefits and support the local area. if you don't mind going to the next slide. Thank you. And like I mentioned, noise. So, inverters do produce a low buzzing noise. Um, but we did submit a noise study for this project and we are in compliance with the Illinois Pollution Control Board uh noise limits. Um, and we are expected to be inaudible to our nearby residences. So, our nearest home is located at 6 38t away from our inverter. And so at this distance, we expect that it'll kind of blend in to the the ambient noise of the environment regardless of if there were panels there or not. Uh and then for vegetative maintenance, um it's definitely our goal to keep our sites looking good and try to bring benefits to the local environment with uh how we manage our vegetation on site. So, we use pollinators to help improve the soil quality, um promote healthy ecosystems, reduce erosion, um as well as a cover crop prior to construction, no soil removal. Um and then we like to work with local organizations wherever we can to kind of tailor the pollinator mix to uh whatever is best in the area. Uh we also typically do aggravaics on our site. So, um, that's often in the form of sheep grazing, although not necessarily always, but, uh, sheep are a great way to kind of manage the vegetation and kind of serve as a supplement in that way. It's being a good land steward. Um, so we've also requested some variances, uh, that have to do with our vegetation and mowing on site. So, for our vegetation height variance, um, we've requested up to 36 in instead of the 13inch requirement. Uh this would just kind of help us take

part in the Illinois Pollinator Scorecard program and make the benefits of our pollinators more effective. Um and then for mowing, we've requested a variance from five times per year to zero times per year. Um and this just kind of allows us flexibility to be able to work with experts to determine when it's appropriate to mow. Um and once the vegetation is well established, it's it could be more detrimental to the pollinators to mow more frequently. So, uh, the intention still remains to maintain the vegetation properly and having this flexibility of no number requirement allows an expert to determine when it's best to do so. And then for project decommissioning, this project has entered into an AMA um, as well as the other projects tonight. So, it will um, be decommissioned at the end of its useful life and we will set aside a bond in order to do so. And then some of the benefits that this project brings to the local area, um, increased tax revenue. We estimate that over the lifespan of the project, it would, um, generate about half a million dollars in, uh, tax revenue for the local taxing bodies. Um, this project is also a community solar project. So, uh, we anticipate savings for subscribers of around 10% on their COMMED utility bills. Um and then overall solar projects uh help generate local and clean energy and help stimulate the local economy as well. Um so that was my overview of the project and I'm absolutely happy to take any questions if you have them and we also have our engineer here as well if you have any technical questions.

Are you shovel ready? We are not. We're still ready to go through all the building permit processes before that. Okay. Last question.

Hey, Roger. Sorry. Does One Energy uh hold the uh the projects throughout their entire lifespan or are they a specific period, five, seven, 10 years?

Yeah, that's a great question. Um so this project and all of our projects um we typically do all the development work. We paper all of the commitments we're making through the project through the special use permit. And uh these projects can be sold and then owned and operated by another developer who will still be held to the same standard that um we're willing to commit to as well. in like regards to the aggravalactic, you know, so say if you sold it, uh is that still going to be that same agalactic uh procedure having sheep come out and or whatever it may be?

Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah. So um when we would if if we were to sell the project um what the aggravaics commitment would look like is um we typically do aggravaics and we um sign that up through the the state program. So when the solar project is sub submitted to the state program we would commit to whether or not we were doing aggravaics and so anyone who would be owning and operating the site would be held to that same commitment uh whether or not we were going to do agotaics. And does that run through the in perpetuity with the uh the project then or is that something that's renewed every five to 10 years? The um the aggravaics.

Yeah, that's a good question. Um if we were to uh use aggravaics and commit to that through the state community solar program, then it would be throughout the project's life span. Thank you. But let me clarify here though. You said earlier in your presentation you're asking for the mowing in case you do you haven't made that commitment yet.

Um yeah, correct. I think it's a very high likelihood that we would be doing aggravaics on this project site. Um but uh for the variance that we're requesting for the mowing, I think regardless of whether it's mowed or um the vegetation is managed through sheep, um there could still be periods where it would be detrimental to the pollinators to manage the vegetation. So that's kind of determined by an expert um in that kind of in that realm um like at the time, right? I I understand the variances are for the pollinators more than for the sheep, but yes, we did have a discussion here earlier. To our knowledge, none of us has ever seen sheep grazing in any solar facility in Will County. Okay.

Granted, we're still in the infancy and some of the earlier ones were still fighting issues of not even having good ground cover planted. Yeah. Which is kind of why we're over the top now on ground cover. Yeah. No, I definitely understand that question. And I will say for uh vegetative maintenance with sheep, um it's typically done a couple times a year um kind of as needed. Um and grazers typically rotate through several projects that they're involved with. So they're not like staying on site for like they're not like living on site. They're brought in by typically a local grazer um to manage vegetation and then the sheep exit the site after that.

Understood. I I guess where I was driving to with that is if you're selling this project and it doesn't go into agriculture owner, but once again, I'm getting into the hypothetical versus what you're proposing. Oh, thank you for that clarification. I understand the question um I think a little bit better now. Um I think when with asking for zero required mowings, that's not necessarily the case that there will be zero mowings. Um, it just kind of allows us the flexibility to if it was determined that mowing wasn't required or mowing could be hurtful, then we wouldn't be forced to mow when it's not in the best interest. So, our intention is still to maintain the vegetation as needed and mow where necessary.

Yeah, let me expand on this because you're new. Yeah, but the light bulb went off because on a community solar project, you're signing up to the pollinators. Is that improved your scorecard with the state of Illinois and the permitting process? Correct.

Yeah, I I I think permitting process is like a little it's it's more of like a it's a state program that you do re you have to receive a certain number of points in order to take part in the program and pollinators is one way to do that. So, there's some flexibility in that. Um, but I think like more than that, even on our sites outside of Illinois where we're not held to this standard, um, pollinators are just great ground cover for solar projects and kind of help us bring more ecosystem benefits where we can. So, we still do this on our sites in Wisconsin where there's not a state program. So, if I understand match concern, going back to it, if you've signed up in the state pollinator program and you sell it, that is still binding on any subsequent owners. Correct.

Correct. That's that's where the pollinators are coming in. and and and as as I've heard multiple cases and I've seen on my own farm, most of your pollinators and forb species are much less likely to flash fires as say a grass crop or a cornstck field. So there is a reason but yes the state of Illinois and the pollinator program. There you go. Yeah. Thank you for your question.

I have a question. What makes this different with for zero moings compared to your other project where you're requiring from five to one? Why is it zero? I mean I understand what you said about for the pollinators but why why this one zero and the other one is just is one. Yeah that's a great question. My understanding is that in our work with the village of Manuka um they have asked for a required number of two mowings and they were more comfortable with that number. Um and so like our our ideal would be zero mowings. Um which we think is um in line with still maintaining our vegetation appropriately. U but that was just something that came up in our conversations in that local area. That is what they requested

because all the other ones at least go down from five to one. I don't skip like none at all. That's why I'm asking because why why your other project is went down to one and this one is zero. Yeah. No. And I think it's there's very it's very likely that you know in in action we would be mowing once a year on the project and we just kind of wanted to maintain that flexibility in case there it it wasn't reasonable for us to be mowing. We don't want to cause more harm by um trying to meet that requirement.

Thank you. Why we're so sensitive on this subject is that we have and you being in the industry, I'm sure you've notice when you drive past a solar farm uh or facility, if I use the word correctly, you can tell right away if it hasn't been mowed. It looks like hell and the people in the community had then come back to us and say, "Why' you approve this piece of, you know, and we're we're saying they promised they'd mow and keep it clean." And

so they say, "Well, you're too trusting." So that's why we keep hammering on this subject. Yeah. No, I I understand and I appreciate the questions. Okay. Is there any other questions from anyone? Go ahead. Oh, no other questions. Thank you very much. Thank you.

All right. the case for CC25-14114s-25-046. I would appreciate a motion, Mr. Chairman. ZC25-141, special use 25- Make sure I got the right one. 063. Yep. Approval of special use permit for commercial solar energy facility applies to 33 acres. you 63 or Yeah, you you've said the wrong one, I think. So, 063, correct? Yes. Yes. Yep.

Okay. It's this one here. Okay. With three conditions. Yes. Kimberly Mitchell. John Kefner? Yes. Roger Bettton? Yes. Matt Garland? Yes. Karen Warick. No. Hugh Stippen? Yes. 5 to one. Same case 141 variance 26-022 approval of variance for number of required mowings from five times to zero times. Second Kimberly Mitchell. Yes. John Kefner. Yes. Roger Battenhausen. Yes. Matt Garland. Yes. Karen Warick. No.

And chairman Hugh Steppen. Yes. Passes. ZC25-141. Variance 26-023. Approval of variance for maximum ground cover plant height from 13 in to 36 in. Second. Kimberly Mitchell. Yes. John Kefner. Yes. Roger Bettton. Matt Garland. Yes. Karen Warick. And Chairman Hugh Stippen. Yes.

Last case. Anybody see if the governor win? No score in the fifth. Cubs better get moving if they're going to win seven in a row. And I'm a Socks fan. Go figure. For the whole team. There's enough hate in the world.

Like I said, there's enough hate in the world. Uh the next case is ZZ-26-011 slashV-26-112 and V-26123.

Ah,

you're alternating, huh? for tonight. Um zoning KZC26011. Um this takes place in DuPage Township. The owner is 17438 Bluff Road LLC where Roberto Mendoza and Hyro Mendoza are each 50% interest and the attorney is John Simpson of Simpson Datilo LLC. Um I do want to point out that the agenda is incorrect. Um it does not state Simpson being the attorney, but the agenda will be corrected for the ordinance um should these variances be approved. The property has been before this commission quite a few times in the last uh year or so. So you may be familiar with this property. Um the property obtained the necessary zoning approvals to allow the landscape business and this commission approved the variances to allow the 16 commercial vehicles and trailers and 21 vehicles to be parked on site. Uh most recently this applicant uh won their appeal before you to pursue this zoning request which is requesting um a variance for the weight classification um for their license plates of their commercial vehicles and trailers kept on site. Um so the applicant just as a refresher utilizes class H plated commercial vehicles and a class uh TG plated commercial trailer for their landscape business. Um, this property is zoned R2 and R2 districts typically only permit up to a class D plate for commercial vehicles or a class TA or TD um, plate for commercial trailers. And just to provide weight equivalencies for these different classes, um, class D commercial vehicles are 10,000 to 12,000 lb. The request to a class H would allow 16,000 to 26,000 lb. Um, regarding the

trailers, a class TD trailer would be 8,000 to 10,000 pounds. TA is slightly less than what a TD is. Um, and then they are requesting a TG plate for a trailer, which is 14,000 to 20,000. Um, the landscape business hours of operation are Monday through Friday, 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Saturdays 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Eight employees would be on site to pick up the vehicles, supplies, and equipment and then drive to the various job sites um throughout their service area. Deliveries are made to this particular site. There will be outdoor storage and then no new buildings are proposed. Um, it would basically be the outdoor storage yard on the property on the northern side of the property. So on the screen we have the subject property. Our GIS system does not reflect the current conditions of this area. Um but you will see in a slide um in the photos on the next slide um why that is. But the subject parcel is located on the north side of Bluff Road. Um it was platted as lot 20 and Reed's crest of Hillate subdivision which was platted back in 1954. this subdivision since the time it was platted. You can see warehousing has extended from um industrial uh industrial parkway business park and then similar uh industrial developments that have developed since then. Um primarily along the I55 corridor in Juliet Road. Um the village of Romeoville is directly south um and has the industrial developments along the south side of Bluff Road. The village of Woodridge shares the northern and western property lines, recently annexing the six um parcels immediately west and have improved uh that parcel with a warehouse development. Um Bluff Road sees about 3,600 vehicles per ID

dot um annual average daily traffic. And um this area is seeing a lot of industrialization to the west of this parcel, but the remnants of the residential areas to the east still retain a residential feel. Um so this area is kind of a very um conflicting area. You don't try to see a lot of residential developments budding industrial um because they are kind of basically seen as opposite development types. So the screen we have um what the building went in on those six parcels adjacent to the subject property. So here we have the subject site. Um you can see primarily that northern half of the property would be the outdoor storage yard. That is where the vehicles would be stored. Um so they have a separate drive along the eastern side of the property where they would have a gate to control the business. Um the property is about 2 acres. It has 200 feet of frontage. Um there is an existing single family residence to the front which they want to keep using as such. Um however, you know, this is basically the last piece for the applicant to address the zoning issues before they can get their site development permit issued for the work done without a permit. and they're basically trying to follow what happened on the property to the east of them. Um, this property was cited prior to the 2018 zoning update and they had variances and special use permits granted for the R2 landscape business as well as allowing um heavier equipment and vehicles um and trailers on site at a time when we actually have that weight limit uh available to request variances. In 2018, we changed the ordinance. Um, but this

applicant being between a parcel that got zoning relief to do what they are doing and where housing development is trying to just kind of fit in. Um, so the zoning map, you can see um this area is definitely seeing a change. Um, we have R2 basically to the east, industrial development to the north and south, and then there's some remaining R2 to the west of the development. Uh, Woodridge future land use map shows this area going to be industrial or will be industrial. Um, looking at the plat survey again, just showing what the proposed gravel is. I do believe the applicant is trying to stay under 25,000 square feet of imperous surfacing on the property um to avoid having to put on-site detention. So like a detention pond to meet the storm water requirements would be required if they exceeded the 25,000 as well as some of the landscaping requirements um kick in at 25,000 square feet. So these are just some old photos of the property. So this is just looking nor uh north at the site. This is looking at the existing residence and that separate drive with the gate. This is looking at the back storage yard area. And then this is looking northwest inside the storage yard area. Um I did not update these photos, but you can see the building pad and just put that big warehouse that you saw in a photo prior um on that site. This is looking south um at the access drive as well as south towards the existing house within the area. And then this is looking um west along Bluff Road. So you can see that new warehouse kind of adjacent to the house. And then this is looking east along Bluff Road towards that residential area. So in terms of the variance criteria, the in-depth analysis is in the staff report, but I will briefly summarize um

that staff finds that the plight of the owner is not due to unique circumstances. The purpose of these variances is necessary to accommodate an unsuitable land use on a residential property. Um while the county board approved the special use permit for the landscape business, the applicant could run the business with appropriately weighted vehicles. Um it's the applicant's personal desire to utilize the heavier than permitted vehicles and trailers as part of his business and not um upgrade the fleet to that that would be appropriate for a residential area. staff finds that the variances if granted would alter the essential character of their locality. Um the provisions applied to R2 districts would be greatly reduced should the variances be approved. So again it's basically detracting um regulations that are already required in the R2 district. This is basically um requesting um exceptions to those standards where they already have a special use for landscape business which is typically not permitted in R2. Um and then the same thing with the number of commercial vehicles and trailers and the number of parked uh vehicles on a constructed driveway. Um the eastern property was limited to six commercial vehicles which included dump trucks and trailers. Um and they were required to be kept inside a metal pole building. The applicant has been approved for more than double that um with the 16 and then also allowed to have 21 vehicles parked on site associated with the business. And while this area is transitioning towards industrial warehousing, the property starts the remainder of that residential neighborhood to the east and allowing heavy commercial vehicles to be stored on site would negatively impact that residential character that starts. Um, with that being said, um, staff is recommending denial of both variances and I know the applicant is here to, um,

speak to their request. I'm happy to answer any questions. The parcel directly to the east already has the uh the same weight rating for vehicles. Yes. And they were permitted under a prior zoning ordinance that allowed them to do so. Understood. Thanks. Are there any other questions?

Thanks, Mary Reed. Are there any objectors or concerned citizens to this case? There are not. Huh? Okay. May I have Mr. Simpson or other representatives?

Good evening, commissioners. Thank you very much for having me this evening. I appreciate everyone's patience. As I know, I'll try and get this as quick as possible. I think Commissioner Garland is the only one who maybe wasn't privy to our past few um administrative appeals and the special use permits. So, uh Margaret did a great job. Sorry, Miss Kenny did a great job kind of highlighting it. Um in the past to expedite it, if you imagine a capital C, that's effectively what's occurred. There's industrial to the northeast, north, northwest, now all the way west, southwest, south, and southeast. the immediate property to the east is zoned in the same way we are, but is also allowing industrial uses under the same variances and the same special permits that we are seeking as well. So effectively in terms of use, everyone that encompasses uses some type of industrial type use or something that's classified as such. Um we're running the real crux in this is we're competing against three different comprehensive plans. Romeoville to the south, Woodridge to the west and the north and then the village uh the Will County where we are to the east. The trend is absolutely going industrial. But what's important to note is that trend effectively has stopped right now because immediately to the east there's 14 parcels that all look residential and it's going to conflict with what you saw on the comprehensive plan of Woodidge, right? Woodidge's comprehensive plan showed it to be industrial. But what needs to be noted by this commission is there are deed restrictions on those properties not permitting commercial and industrial uses. So the only way that's going to change, it's going to be black and white, right? they're going to need to acquire all of those parcels at once to then flip it. So, in my in my opinion, the trend would continue further west of us uh west of where this last uh

industrial warehouse was built. And I think that that serves Commissioner Kefner gave a great example. It serves almost as a buffer by keeping it and allowing these variances and by permitting the special use permit that you did. It runs with the applicants. So if they ever abandon that use, if they ever sell the property, they lose that zoning, it reverts back to residential. That is what the neighbors expressed they wanted. We had I think in throughout this entire process of all the meetings, we had one objector who said we should have done what the neighbor did, which is identical to what we're doing here. Uh so I I feel we we accommodated that neighbor as well. The next step is to kind of go over the plight of the owner and or each of the standards that we need to meet. So I believe the unique circumstances here would be just that. If you look at the development of this area, there's effectively no way to use this property. Everyone's caught in this catch 22 of if you go industrial then you can't allow for residential use but if you do you can allow a variance for on-site security but then you would need a variance for allowing how many people could stay in that overnight and still call it security. So the real shortfall of this is unfortunately the way it's defined. I don't fault anyone. I would imagine that there's probably nobody else that fits in this county under these circumstances where you're going to see industrial development on effectively 270 degrees of a subject property that's also competing with two other municipal land comprehensive codes and developments while also accommodating industrial and 18-wheelers throughout the entire Bluff Road stretch. Um, so I I don't believe that was caused by my clients. I think the

unique circumstances in that plate was not caused by them. Yes, they did um use that property in a manner it shouldn't have been allowed, but we are seeking to remedy it and we're remedying it in the same way that the neighbor has as well and in which all the other neighbors they would be permitted by right um the variance uh regarding altering the essential character of the locality. Fundamentally, I just disagree with staff on this. If you look to the again 270 degrees, you're going to see industrial. So I don't think anyone is going to look at our parcel which is going to be very similar to that of the east and think that we've altered the um the essential character of that locality. I think that effectively has already been changed. Um the proceeding standards that we have to do also deals with particular physical surrounding shapes or topographical conditions um that would result in a particular hardship rather than an inconvenience. So again, the the physical characteristics are how does how is this lot to be used? If it's residential, there's not exactly, you know, millions of people beating down the door hoping that they can sleep next to industrial buildings where they have 18-wheelers going 24/7 hearing the beeps when they reverse. It's creating a hardship of what is the best use for that property. My clients are in a great spot because their employees stay there. So, it's they're used to this type of machinery and it's not going to be that of I would imagine you probably don't want to go to sleep at night on them Friday and then hear a beeping, especially if you have children or newborns. It's not exactly conducive. So, it works out well to serve as that buffer um for these two houses before you get into the deed restricted houses to the east. And in terms of the variance application being based to other properties within the same zoning classification, um I

would imagine you're not going to get anyone else that can apply under the same manner in which we would try to apply. I would imagine the prior applicant said that, but under the circumstances here, it almost seems that we either have to go industrial or mirror the person to the east. And I believe that's the best setup for us to keep a residential while allowing this. Um I don't believe anyone else would fall into this again with the deed restrictions. If someone acquires all 14 parcels, I think you're going to be seeing then them an X into Woodridge and then you will see the development I think that they've shown on their plan. The uh variance based exclusively on a desire to make more money. I contemplated how to phrase this and I'm going to try and use this humorously. They were offered a substantial amount to sell out to an industrial development. They turned down a sizable offer. The problem that my clients have, and it's not just here in Will County, I'm seeing it in many jurisdictions. Most jurisdictions zone landscape use similar to how the county does. The problem is that effectively puts them in direct competition with developers who are building all of these uh industrial warehouses or the, you know, um Amazon type warehouses. I have a family-owned landscape business that's effectively taking on REITs that are building this. It's unfortunately not a fair fight. Um, and so in this instance, I would say that the mere fact we did not take that offer would show that we're not trying to maximize profit because it would have been more profitable to not have taken this route. Um, and the hardship was not caused by anyone presently having an interest in the property. Again, the while the what we're trying to accomplish on there, you can make an argument and say, well, it's caused by it. That's not the issue. The issue is accommodating a business use while also allowing the residential use. And unfortunately, the way the code is

written, there's two paths to get to the same place and both of them have these kind of play on words or trying to follow the restrictions. So, we chose to follow what the neighbor did to the east. And then lastly, um detrimental for the public welfare. I don't believe that. Um, you have hundreds of 18-wheelers that are passing this area. For those that are not as familiar, you know, if you think just the cab, the front part of an 18-wheeler, it's about 20 25,000 lb. An unloaded 18-wheeler is about 30 35,000 lb. And a fully, you know, without extra permits, they can weigh up to 80,000 lb. We're capped at, I think, 25,000 26,000. And the only difference in the statutes that arose are because of the way Illinois classified the license plates. They used to actually limit based on the poundage. Now they gave these letter classifications. So I think the difference between the neighbor is like 25,000 versus 26,000. We're happy to mirror if you guys want to add on a condition to keep it the exact same way. There's there's no issue um from my client or with respect to that. And then lastly, we don't believe and I think staff's in agreement where we would impair adequate supply of air adjacent to the property or danger of fire. Um and lastly, the only thing I can tell you is this has been a long road. If you guys give us we are shovel ready, chairman. Um we are looking to put up a fence to be able to screen and try and map out similarly um within allowable uses what the neighbor did to the east, which I think is already done. And if you looked at those front the frontage photos, you can't see from the road with the with the work that's going on to the north. Um, and in terms of water detention, the photos don't show it. Um, the proposal did in Woodridge when I followed it. So, I would imagine that the next phase of their construction is putting a detention pond, but it's not there yet. So, this should it it it's not Well, I hope not because it's not nearly deep enough to hold really any substantial water. So, I would imagine

we're absolutely going to keep it under 25,000 and with a detention pond just to the west of us as well, it makes sense for us to do so. Um, I think I've received all those. I I don't know if there's any other I'll stay up if there's any questions but uh I'd only ask the only other thing I'd point out is when we went in front of land use committee I believe August 7th and then we were followed by the administrative appeal here August 19th and then the will county board approved it on the 21st. Uh, and what I will tell you is that the board was deadlocked on this issue and then when one of the commissioners was speaking with the others and realized this would come back here for a map amendment, they actually went back, reconsidered the vote and then voted, I believe it was 14 to six for approval knowing that we were also coming back for additional um, variances. We had made that clear in the presentation. So that way we could offer this board a little bit of guidance of how the Will County board viewed this matter as well. So, and with that, that's all I have.

The area that you're representing has a real dichotomy.

Um, you know, there's used to be two. Now there's only one. Used to be a blind girl up there and a handicapped child. that with with 16 wheelers rolling back and forth across those roads constantly. I can't see either of those children playing out there anymore. And at one end you still had a honeybee farm and the other end turned into almost solid industry. So I I see all the problems that you have there. I I just made a comment that I should probably should have but so I guess the unfortunate thing is I can remember everything Greg from 20 years ago but I after you mentioned that I'm like I do remember quizzing some of the neighbors that were here on the previous and they did like you as the buffer

but and I also remember now though that we had a lengthy discussion about weight rating of vehicles and If you watch any video of trucking or trailer hauling with 10 truckers, you're going to get half of them telling everybody what the trucker is doing wrong is they're undersizing the truck to the trailer. Mhm.

So what the county code here and I guess your argument that injurious to the neighbors, what the county code is here is telling you and something that I find myself doing on my farm because I'm a cheapkate and the whole time trying to do something sketchy. I'm always undersizing my truck to the load I'm pulling, which is an extreme hazard to anybody on the road. on my farm. Now, I've determined that it's no longer safe to drive a tractor on the road because I farm a lot of smaller equipment because even an accident with a car could kill. So, now I'm loading some of my equipment on trailers just to go two or three miles. That's a decision I've made. And it's come to the point that do I need to have a bigger truck to pull this trailer safely? And I know that in construction small skid steer loaders are 12,000 pounds now. They used to be 6,000. The big ones were 12. Now the small ones are 12 and the big ones are 18. So to not give you this basically tells your business you're not going to be able to function the way you want and they might go looking at that offer from the neighbors if they ever make it again. So that's the way I'm kind of looking at it. And the fact that you don't have anybody here and the green cards were sent out. They posted it on the road. The neighbors did not come here and say they don't want you to have this. And I guess the only real difference is you're getting a few more trucks than the neighbor, the other landscape business. They're you're getting more than what is required by the county. Correct.

That was permitted. Yes. Yes, Chair. Uh that's why we're here. And also just so to include this for Commissioner Gardland, the neighbor directly to the east when we applied for the special use permit put in the record notorized affidavit. They are in support of this. They understand what my clients do for a living. They have no objection. They are in support of it as well. I think a big difference was you enter from the road and had the residence. He enters from the back St. Catherine's crossing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that that's where I stand on it. I mean it's just the staff is right somewhat about some of their stuff, but I mean it's it's a dichotomy as you say score there on that one. It's like the landscaping business we approved up there has a back road.

Well, and and I know we've seen many of these the the the fine line between a permitted home occupation business. Most people try this with a landscaping business and they have more than one or two employees, they have a lot of equipment, they run into that same catch 22 you're talking about where can they really cite them. So I, you know, I can concede that this makes perfect sense to me, even though LU staff is right about some of the criteria that they raised. And if there's nobody here, I' I'd be a yes to it.

If I recall correctly, when CT development did that development across the street, that route, that road was improved um up to I think to what you're talking about, the deed restricted 14 homes. Like that road was improved to accommodate heavy hall. So, I think it's 80,000 pounds up to that point uh where the deed restricted homes are. Yeah, I I made the same deduction because if they pull up a map on the GIS, the entryway what used to be a farm to the south of us. Correct. Um that keep Yeah.

Wait, I brought this. I've been waiting to use this. It's a nice laser pointer. So, and it doesn't work. You've got to clean. All right. Well, I took a shot. There we go. No, doesn't work either. Um it was Keep Keep going. It was just before this one, I think, on the the packet. Yeah. If you look right, you'll see the two concrete ways. You pass all of the new development to the west of us, our house, those deed restricted houses, and then you turn into the south. So, based on the 18-wheelers that I see and how big those warehouses are, I'd imagine at some point either going there or leaving there, they have to be loaded. So, so I would agree it's got to be 80,000 at least.

Yeah. The entrance to the that warehouse on the bluff is past this residence. It goes back like a chip. Let's move this 209. Anybody else? Mr. Chairman, ZC26-011 V26-112. Given no objections from the public, motion for approval for variance for parking or storage of commercial vehicles displaying or requiring the display of a class D Illinois state license or less or an out of state equivalent to a class H or an out of state equivalent. Second. Have a motion second. May I have a roll call? Kimberly Mitchell, John Kefner,

yes. Roger Bettton, yes. Matt Garland, yes. Karen Warick and Chairman Hugh Stippen. Yes. Yes. And case 011 variance 26-123. Motion approval for a variance for parking or storage of commercial trailers displaying or requiring the display of a class TA or TD Illinois state license plate or less or out of state equivalent to a class TG or out of state equivalent. Second. Motion. Second. Roll call. Kimberly Mitchell. John Kefner. Yes. Roger Bettton, yes. Matt Garland, yes. Karen Warick, yes. And Chairman Hugh Steppen, yes. Approved.

Commissioners and staff, thank you all for your professionalism and your courtesy throughout this process. It's it's really been a pleasure. Even as long as we've been going to try and accommodate it, it's been everyone's been professional. I really appreciate it. Thank you all. Thank you. Do we have any public comment? No public comment. Okay. Do we have announcements? Just one announcement and that's um hold your date for May 12th and plan for a long evening. It is May 12th just

probably should be May 12th. It does not seem like we have enough for quorum on the 13th, 14th or 15th. So um I think the idea is to get it completed on the 12th and be done. Ask is that a two-day thing or a one day thing though? I think the plan is for one day but we do have to allow for public comment because it will be an open meeting. Um but um in terms of the meeting it is very limited in scope of what has to happen but we still have to allow for public comment and our understanding the applicant will be renotifying everybody. So we anticipate a large crowd again.

It's just my suggestion and I I just have a gut feeling that we ought to plan two days for this. Well, we we wouldn't have a quorum the next day. That's what she's saying. Nobody is available two days in a row. Well, I thought we had two sets of dates set up and what we'd had the So, for this um meeting in particular, it's court ordered to basically just allow a cross-examination for a certain person and his clients. Um, so with that, that is what the purpose of the meeting would be to continue the planning and zoning commission meeting from the 30th and 31st.

Can can we guarantee that we're not going to have anybody else want to speak though? Well, that's where it would be an open meeting, so we would have public comment and we could definitely follow up with you um with how it would operate um before the meeting. But the idea is the entire night would be for that case and ideally it would conclude that night.

Well, unless and and I'm not being obstreporous here, but unless there's a limitation of like four hours. I think it's unfair to those on our board who have to drive to the various borders of Will County. You know, they're they're leaving at night to go 25 miles or 30 miles. That's not fair. I believe it will be at the Renaissance Center again.

No, let me ask some question. The only person that is speaking during the public hearing then is Mr. Becker crossexam and presenting evidence is what? People can't come up and testify in a public hearing setting like that. But you're saying that we have since it's a full-fledged meeting. We have to allow public comment at the end, which we can limit. That is my understanding. We are still working on the details of the meeting, but yes, we would have to allow public comment. Chris, what's your understanding? If we allow one person to interrogate their lawyer and then back and forth only the court, can we exclude other people from doing the same thing?

In this case, we can because the court order was very specific about who gets the right to cross-examine and it isn't the general public, but they do have a right to to speak just like they could have tonight. We just never could anytime but we never have them here because you see the room is empty. Whether the room will be empty after 3 hours of cross- examination I don't know there's no way to knowing and we could limit them though right. Yeah. So I've been to a bunch of public comment meetings lately. There's always a two or three minute.

Yeah. But you know you were there. You know these people want to talk. I don't know. Yeah. It's more about crowd control than yeah, sure, we could say whatever. These are the rules, but can we can we enforce it? Let's let's go back to the cross-examining. I I got a feeling that they're just going to hammer all kinds of senseless stuff. We can try to move them along though, right?

Yeah, we can. Um the the less we do of that, the less likely we were to be back in court. In other words, if we let them exhaust everything that they can do, then we won't have to do it a third time. I don't know what is suffic. Nobody ever says exactly what how many minute. No, no judge ever gives us parameters. They just say that you're not doing it the way we want you to do it. So, she the judge didn't give us any parameters on how long they could cross-examine or any anything like that. Just you could do it Mr. Smith goes to Washington.

Well, you know, I mean, at some point the statute says that we have the right to limit put reasonable limits on it. So, if they go go off into left field, we can say, "Look, we're not we're not going to hear this anymore. Get you, you know, you've been at it for two hours. Get down to the bottom of it because we're going to end it here." And you have warning, you know, and and I was stressed before. It's got to as it pertains to zoning, correct? It's a zoning meeting. It is. It is. So, it has to pertain to the zoning.

Well, it and it really should only pertain to the sufficiency of the application of, you know, in other words, we they shouldn't launch into the Lasal Sinclair factors that we just, you know, the the the whole staff analysis like like Margie said that that's irrelevant. We're not lawyers. We can't rule on that. And I don't have the power of a judge to say, "Okay, I've heard enough. Stop."

This is why it irritates me that we're in this position because I think that we do I think that we always have done it right. But that isn't how the law has evolved. And so unfortunately, we have to obey the judge. But you you hit it right on the head as far as I'm concerned. But I am only concerned about this far. So um we are under order to give them a reasonable amount of time. I mean, can we cap it at three hours? I I don't know. Maybe. That seems reasonable to me.

Well, if if they're suing for monetary value and that's why they're suing rather than their their stated statement that they're suing in behalf of other clients who never mentioned what clients he has. Uh, and the county has big pockets. So the county would be the one that logically would get the lawsuit. Oh yeah. And maybe the lawsuit won't be against what happens at the PCC. It'll be what happened at the county board.

Correct. That's what we the goal has to be and it will. We're going to get sued either way. That's not going to go away because we have this extra hearing. All that does we need to push it out of our realm and back to the county and then let things go from there. But but I think uh the the applicant is saying, "Look, we we'll do whatever we need to do. Just don't put us back in court because that delays everything one more time." Yeah. Well, there's there's no one else in the room. Uh so I'm going to say it out loud. Uh we're still on the TV though, aren't we? Just we're still on TV. It's still televised.

I guess I won't say it out loud. We're on We're on. Yep. We will We will take motion to adjurnn. Yeah. Motion to adjurnn in a second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Any oppose? Same side. Kitty's at the Our next meeting is scheduled for May 5th.