Kane County Chronicle
November 29, 2007
By PAUL DAILING
BIG ROCK – Since 2002, a section of Dan Hladilek’s property
near Interstate 88 was in the protected corridor for the Prairie
Parkway project.
As of this week, it’s out.
“To be honest with you, I was kind of disappointed because I was
hoping to push that along and make a few pesos,” said Hladilek,
44, of Maple Park.
Hladilek might be in a different situation than many of the property
owners along the new protected corridor that the Illinois Department of
Transportation recorded this week. His land was not a family farm but
land that he bought to build a house before finding that he could not
get the building permits.
But along the planned highway’s route between Big Rock and
Minooka, new legal distinctions began this week for hundreds of
properties.
“The map changes several different property owners and so
forth,” said project manager Rick Powell of IDOT. “Rather
than have an outdated map out there, we decided to just update and
record it.”
Jan Strasma of Citizens Against the Sprawlway criticized the move of officially recording the map.
“We still take issue with recording the corridor because it puts
a restriction on people’s property without any compensation or
without any recourse and it goes on forever,” Strasma said.
Prairie Parkway is a proposed highway connecting interstates 88 and 80.
A plan pushed by former U.S. Rep. Dennis Hastert when he was House
speaker, the parkway is expected to cost a total $954 million. In
nonbinding advisory referendums in April, 88 percent of Big Rock
Township voters and 81 percent of Kaneville Township voters voted
against the Parkway.
The old protected corridor from 2002 affected 191 properties. The new
one affects 224. Only 97 properties were in both corridors. The new
corridor picked up 127 new property owners and dropped 94 from the
previous map.
“Some of the changes were the line moved within the same property,” Powell said.
The larger changes were in Kendall and Grundy counties. In sections of
Kendall County, the new corridor is up to 2 1/2 miles away from the old
corridor in sections.
“The main changes in Kane were at the north end. The alignment
used to go through the quarry up there on 88 and now it goes through
the sod farm,” Powell said, referring to Dunteman Turf.
A call to Dunteman Turf was not returned Wednesday.
Among the restrictions put on protected properties is that any property
improvements – from garages to sheds to new structures –
must go through IDOT, Strasma said.
“While IDOT will tell you it won’t affect the property
value, let’s face it, if you’re looking at two properties
and one of them’s restricted, one of them isn’t, if
they’re otherwise equal you’re going to choose the
unrestricted property. That’s just common sense,” Strasma
said.
The next step in building the Parkway is to issue an environmental
impact statement before the federal government gives the official
go-ahead. Then land purchases can begin, possibly next year, Powell
said.
“If IDOT and the property owner can come to an agreement, then
they would make the acquisition that way. If there is no agreement then
the property owner can take IDOT to court to get a higher price or
whatever,” Powell said.
However, the property owners cannot ask the court to let them keep their land.
“Usually compensation is the only thing the court can consider,” Powell said.