When Carpentersville annexed 150 acres west of Randall Road earlier this year — the village’s largest annexation since the late 1990s — it did so by employing a rarely used tool known as a judicial annexation.
The action was instigated when a company approached Kane County about building a solar farm on land located south of Huntley Road and east of Galligan Road, Village Manager John O’Sullivan said.
Because the proposed solar farm was outside the village in unincorporated Kane County, Carpentersville officials didn’t have a say in the plan. They did, however, have the right to voice their opinion so Village President John Skillman sent a letter to county officials objecting to the facility going on property considered prime for residential or commercial development.
Their opposition also stemmed from the perception some have of solar farms, O’Sullivan said. One developer speaking to village officials about a different project was “appalled” to learn that a solar farm was proposed for the site, he said.
“It was an eye-opener for us,” O’Sullivan said.
The land in question, along with other parcels, had been on Carpentersville’s boundary map for years per an intergovernmental agreement with the village of Gilberts.
Boundary agreements spell out which municipality will annex a site should it be developed to stave off future fights pitting one town against another to the developer’s benefit. As a result, the village “never formally approached those property owners about annexation because, just by sort of natural process, (any development) would fall into the village of Carpentersville,” O’Sullivan said.
Learning about the solar farm proposal “prompted us to stop waiting around for something to happen and make something happen,” he said.
In other words, they could wait for prospective buyers to appear and request annexation or they could ensure the land was already in Carpentersville, putting the village in the driver’s seat when it comes to deciding how it will be developed.
While the solar farm was eventually rejected by the county, the village decided to move forward with a rarely taken action: filing a judicial annexation request in which they could obtain a judge’s approval to move unincorporated, undeveloped land into Carpentersville.
“We approached the surrounding property owners and asked them if they would like to join the petition to annex into Carpentersville,” he said.
All of the property owners — other than the owner of the land on which the solar farm was to go — agreed, he said.
The annexation, approved in the spring, means Carpentersville’s western boundary now officially goes up to Galligan Road. Only the site on which the solar farm was to be built is excluded.
“It’s always been in our planning maps, but now it will be in the actual boundary map,” O’Sullivan said.
“We’re super excited,” Skillman said. “Nothing has happened out there for so long.” With new homebuilding starting up again, the annexation should create new opportunities for development, he said.
The newly annexed land is important because Carpentersville didn’t have anywhere else to expand before it came into the village, O’Sullivan said. “This is pretty much it. It’s the last frontier,” he said.
Next up is getting a revised intergovernmental boundary agreement signed with Gilberts, O’Sullivan said. Village officials also are working on changing the zoning for the newly annexed land so multiuse developments are allowed, making the property more marketable, he said.
“We’ve been approached by a couple of developers already, asking what we will be OK with,” O’Sullivan said. “We are flexible. We realize the market has changed in the last 20 years, when people wanted quarter-acre lots. (That’s) not the real world anymore.”
Options include a single-family home subdivisions, apartment building complexes or commercial developments, he said.
“We’re hoping to make it more flexible for … developers,” he said. “We’re open for business.”
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
