Joliet council puts latest industrial zoning plan on hold

The rezoning of 331 acres once planned for expansion of the Cedar Creek subdivision was delayed Tuesday, a decision that met with applause from residents who came to City Hall to oppose the plan.

Owners of the land want the property rezoned from residential to industrial.

The plan is the latest in a number of rezonings sought for residential and agricultural properties on the south end of Joliet that have met with objections from residents opposed to the number of warehouses going up.

“We are so spot-zoned right now,” Julie McCarrin, a resident on Schweitzer Road, told the council. “There’s agricultural in front of us. There’s industrial all around us. We have no hope of selling our houses.”

McCarrin was one of 11 people who spoke against the rezoning.

None of the objectors identified themselves as Cedar Creek residents, which led Councilwoman Jan Quillman to question whether the city had given notice to the neighborhood that the public hearing was being held Tuesday.

“I’d like to table this until we can really look at it again,” Quillman said.

The council voted, 8-0, to table the plan until Sept. 3.

“That will give us three months to take a look at this,” Quillman said.

One resident suggested that the rezoning be tabled until the city develop a comprehensive plan, a project that the city has begun but is likely to take up to two years to complete.

“Why not wait until you get a new comprehensive plan before you go forward with something this big?” resident Matt Robbins asked.

Joliet does not now have a comprehensive plan for the entire city.

But it does have regional plans for certain sections, including what is called the Southside Comprehensive Plan that calls for development of the 331 acres for residential property.

The council in the past has disregarded the Southside plan, calling it outdated because it was completed in 2007 before CenterPoint Intermodal Center was built and the south section of the city became the site of an industrial real estate boom.

An attorney for PNI Joliet, which owns the 331 acres, argued at a council workshop meeting on Monday that they have not been able to market the land for residential development in 15 years.

Resident Dellilah Legrett, however, cited numbers indicating homes are being built.

“The data shows a positively trending residential market,” Legrett said.