Aurora Beacon-News -- Series and related stories on Prairie Parkway
Aurora Beacon-News
June 20, 2006
Some people might assume I went spelunking through Kendall County
property records two months ago to find some way to connect House
Speaker Dennis Hastert to his pet Prairie Parkway project.
The truth is I set out to learn who owns property near the proposed
intersections of the 36-mile outer beltway and write an economic
development story about how the parkway is already affecting land
values and the types of projects being proposed.
For years, the standard Prairie Parkway story has been one of seething
property owners whose land will be gobbled up by a sprawl-inducing
expressway.
This series was an opportunity to show the other side of the story, the
environmentally blasphemous possibility that the road might actually be
a boon to a county struggling with some of the fastest population
growth in the country, but no economic infrastructure to support it.
My method involved identifying property within a few miles of the
proposed interchanges at Routes 30, 34, 71, 47 and 52. When the Kendall
County Board endorsed possible intersections at Galena and Grove roads,
I expanded the scope of my project to include those as areas that could
benefit.
When I looked at property near a potential Galena Road interchange
(which neither the county nor the Illinois Department of Transportation
plan on funding), I came across hundreds of acres owned by a company
identified only as "RALC-Plano."
Looking into the history of all the property owned by what I figured
was a developer, I came across a parcel that was purchased for $11,000
an acre in 2002 by Hastert's wife, but sold to the developer in
December 2005 by Little Rock Trust #225.
Checking with the County Recorder's office, I found that Hastert and
his wife transferred the parcel into the trust in May 2005. The trust
sold the parcel along with another property of which Hastert owned a
quarter interest in December for about $36,000 per acre.
That came out to a $2 million profit for Hastert in a little more than
three years. Not bad for a former Yorkville school teacher and
wrestling coach.
But I realized there were deeper implications of making the connection between the profit and the parkway.
Since Hastert bought his 195-acre estate about five miles from the
parkway's protected corridor in 2002, opponents of the highway have
made claims at public meetings about "Hastert's investment property"
and the ethics behind profiting from a project the speaker had a hand
in bringing to fruition.
In the course of my research, I found evidence that the parkway was
already a factor in the thought process for local developers hoping to
take advantage of the parkway's future interchanges, which, according
to economic development directors, could be the difference between a
local grocery store and a mammoth shopping center at those locations.
However, Hastert has emphasized that his property is too far from the
parkway to be affected in the same way. Even the developer who bought
Hastert's property, Art Zwemke, president of the Robert Arthur Land
Company (i.e. RALC), said the parkway had no effect on the sale price
of Hastert's land.
But if that's true, then Hastert isn't nearly as savvy an investor as his $2 million profit would suggest.
Property values are going up in Kendall County on their own, but the
anecdotal evidence shows that farmers, developers and other land owners
are taking into consideration the potential value of the Prairie
Parkway.
It makes sense, especially after Hastert secured a $207 million earmark
for the parkway last July and IDOT recently unveiled detailed plans for
the likely route.
Zwemke noted that highway projects bear too much uncertainty to factor
into land values, especially as the land acquisition process could take
years as land owners tie it up in the courts. He cited the defunct Fox
Freeway that was proposed in the 1970s, but wasn't officially defeated
until the 1990s.
The Prairie Parkway, however, has the potential to be Hastert's legacy.
The project is on the cusp of becoming a reality, something Hastert
rightly should take pride in because the region needs the revenue.
I don't think Hastert necessarily did anything improper. As the speaker
put it, he sold property "like millions of people do every day."
But public officials should be held to a higher standard. Even the
appearance of impropriety — in this case the ability to profit
from a self-promoted highway project — is enough reason to raise
questions.