The turmoil continues for Sugar Grove, where the incoming and outgoing village president are fighting over a final plat of subdivision for a part of The Grove, a controversial 760-acre mixed-use development project the village OK’d last September.
On Wednesday morning, the Sugar Grove Village Board held a special meeting to pass a final plat of subdivision for a portion of the Crown development.
Incoming village president Sue Stillwell told The Beacon-News in an email that she appealed the proceeding before Wednesday’s meeting, but the village held the meeting to approve the plat anyway, she said.
Current Village President Jennifer Konen said Stillwell had a hand in getting the item taken off a past meeting agenda despite not having taken office yet.
A plat of subdivision is essentially a map dividing up a piece of land into smaller lots. The resolution included a minor change to “reduce the minimum horizontal centerline radius for minor roads from a minimum of 200 feet to a minimum of 90 feet,” according to a memo from the village’s community development director. It notes that the plat otherwise meets all standards that were approved for the development district.
The project at the center of this dispute was proposed by land owner and developer Crown Community Development and will sit on what is mostly farmland surrounding the Interstate 88 and Route 47 interchange, according to past reporting.
The area is set to hold neighborhoods, mixed-use commercial and residential areas, a walkable town center and a business park, according to past reporting. It could have up to 1,500 residential units — a combination of single-family homes, townhomes, apartments and “active adult homes,” according to the project’s website.
The project has long faced public opposition, with residents showing up to meetings to oppose the development for months before it was ultimately approved by the Sugar Grove Village Board last September. Along with approving the development itself, the board also OK’d an agreement to annex the property into the village and give financial incentives to the developer.
The most recent controversies come shortly after major shake-ups prompted by the April 1 election, in which residents expressed opposition to the project moving forward.
On April 1, Sugar Grove residents voted in favor of the village reversing its decision on the controversial Crown development project in an advisory referendum, per Kane County election results. They also voted to oust incumbent Village President Jennifer Konen and a village trustee who had voted in favor of the development project.
Now, as Konen wraps up her last weeks as village president, the village board is pushing forward with plans for the Crown project.
Holding a special meeting was “necessary due to recent actions that disrupted the standard public process,” Konen said in a letter addressed to residents that was attached to Wednesday’s meeting agenda.
According to Konen’s letter, the village’s planning commission was set to review the final plat for the subdivision of an area of the development on April 16, but the item was withdrawn from the meeting agenda after Stillwell requested a 90-day pause to consult with legal counsel on April 8, Stillwell and Konen said.
On Tuesday, Stillwell made a formal notice of appeal over the plat.
Konen is saying Stillwell doesn’t yet have the authority to “direct village business or affect meeting agendas,” per her letter. Stillwell is saying the village didn’t follow its code on appeals in not halting approval of the plat.
Stillwell said that, upon taking office, she plans to veto the plat approval OK’d on Wednesday, meaning the village might have to undo the approval of the plat at a later date.
“It is a circus,” Stillwell said at the meeting on Wednesday.
A motion to adjourn on Wednesday before approval of the plat failed, and after discussion the item went to a vote, passing 5-1 with Trustee Sean Michels opposing.
Before and after the vote, however, the move generated some criticism at Wednesday’s meeting, about the plat itself, the board’s decision to move forward with the approval at the special meeting and the Crown project generally.
“It’s a deliberate attempt to push through a controversial decision in the 11th hour of an outgoing administration, despite every indication that it should be paused,” Sugar Grove resident Pat Gallagher said of Wednesday’s vote at the meeting. “It’s rushed, it’s irregular and it embodies exactly the kind of governance people are exhausted by.”
Moving forward with the plat was “not a rushed action,” Konen said in her letter dated April 21, as it has been under review for months. She said in her letter that withholding approval for the plat “could expose the village to legal and financial risk.”
Konen did not respond to a request for further comment on Wednesday.
And now, with the Crown development project still progressing, Stillwell is set to inherit the village’s situation — but not quite yet.
Stillwell told The Beacon-News she requested to get sworn in Wednesday but was not. At the meeting, an attorney for the village called the timeline for the incoming president to take office after the certification of the election a “gray area.” Konen said in her letter that the new leader won’t take office until May 6.
And Konen, for her part, stood behind her legacy as she prepares to leave her seat next month.
“It is in the best interest of this community to have development,” Konen said at the meeting. “(Residents) talk about Portillo’s, they talk about Chick-fil-a, they talk about all these businesses that they want, those businesses … will tell you, they will not come to this community unless their needs are met. So we can hope and pray that all these wonderful things are going to come here, but if you stifle development in this community, it will not happen.”
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
