Naperville City Council tabled a decision on the Polo Club development in south Naperville.
Council is considering annexing the property into Naperville’s jurisdiction, but needed to vote to direct city staff to begin preparing the appropriate documents.
The Public Speaks Up
One hundred thirty five members of the public voiced their opposition to the development proposed by D.R. Horton, finding issues with traffic and density.
“The density of the proposed Polo Club development is 4.55 households per acre,” said Naperville resident Karen Spangler. “This is more than double the adjacent density at South Pointe and twice the density of new developments in the area such as Wagner Farms and Clow Creek that are currently under construction.”
And they said more homes means more traffic.
Traffic Congestion
City staff agreed that traffic was a major problem on 119th, with drivers from Naperville, Plainfield, and Oswego using it as a thoroughfare from I-55.
“What we basically have out there – it’s an intersection capacity problem today. It’s driven by the lack of lanes at that intersection,” said Naperville’s Director of Transportation, Engineering, and Development Bill Novack.
D.R. Horton’s plan would include adding a right turn lane at 119th and Route 59, restriping the left turn lane and including a center lane along the Polo Club development, but residents felt that wasn’t enough.
“The traffic report rates the current evening conditions of 119th and Route 59 as a level of service F,” said Wolf Creek resident Lorrie Williams. “The report says that if they do nothing and don’t build, it’s still an F. And if they do the items mentioned in this iteration of their plan, it’s also still an F.”
Affordable Housing
And while some on the dais were concerned about how the development would impact traffic, others felt the lack of affordable housing was a bigger issue.
“Yes, this project offers some diversity on affordability, but it’s got zero units of actual affordable housing,” said Councilman Patrick Kelly. “We heard so much over the past year about the definition of affordable being 30% of an income of 60% of the [Area Median Income] and this has nothing to add to that.”
Council needed five votes to direct staff to prepare documents for annexation, but six to annex the property at a future meeting. When it became clear that only five council members supported the proposal, the item was tabled indefinitely.
Council did vote to extend D.R. Horton’s petition to work on their Polo Club development for another year.
Naperville News 17’s Casey Krajewski reports.
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