The July 23 Yorkville City Council meeting featured a contentious public hearing regarding the city’s plans to annex and rezone two separate areas of unincorporated Bristol to develop massive data center campuses.
Local homeowners raised concerns that rezoning the area for industrial will compel them to move and result in the values of their properties diminished.
City Administrator Bart Olson said taht, data center campuses are sought because they will generate millions of dollars annually in utility taxes for Yorkville once completed.
The petitioners in favor of rezoning for industrial development, Chicago-based Green Door Capital, and the real estate Hagemann Family Trust, are seeking to annex and rezone 138-acres of unincorporated farmland, located east of Eldamain Road, north of Corneils Road, and west of West Beecher Road. The properties are currently zoned as R-1 Single-Family Suburban Residential District, but the petitioners are seeking to have them rezoned after annexation to M-2 General Manufacturing District.
The council recently approved a separate development of 228-acres of former farmland into a data center campus with nine two-story buildings by Texas-based developer CyrusOne on the northeast corner of Eldamain Road and Faxon Road. Information on the other two projects can be found at Hagemann Annexation and Rezoning, and Kelaka, LLC Annexation and Rezoning.
One of the public speakers addressing the council was attorney Monica Shamass, who represents three of the local families who are concerned the project will negatively affect their homesteads. She said the families face disparate consequences because of the speed of the rezoning.
“These families have invested their life savings and dreams into these homes,” Shamass said to the council. “The current annexation plan effectively isolates their properties, cutting them off and surrounding them with industrial and manufacturing uses. Turning their properties into an island will effectively force them to sell. If they stay and then want to sell sometime in the future, they will have diminished property values.”
Shamass expressed the families’ concerns that their residential lots will become unmarketable. She also said the families have experienced immense difficulty finding any comparable properties at affordable prices similar to the size and usage capabilities of their currently owned properties. Shamass believes Green Door Capital is basing their valuations on when the families bought their properties several years ago.
“My clients have made attempts to engage with Green Door Capital seeking substantive discussion and fair negotiations,” Shamass said. “However, their efforts have been met with insufficient or non-substantive responses. Green Door Capital fails to consider the drastic changes in the housing market since my clients purchased their homes. [They] fail to understand the higher interest rates, increased housing costs, and that they operate specific businesses out of their properties.”
Shamass said the families need many more months to understand the valuations of their homes and to find replacement properties suitable for their businesses. She argued the families were only contacted a short time ago in late June, and said some mailed notices never arrived or are still in transit.
“Our clients need the ability to understand what is happening to them and what is uprooting their families and their lives,” Shamass said. “Public policy should not uproot families from their home and push them into financial hardship. We need time to collaborate with Green Door Capital to ensure these families are not just compensated for their properties, but rightfully made whole.”
According to the City Council, a public hearing for the annexation request was first held on May 14. However, the city did not meet their codified requirements for notice via certified mailings for property owners within 500 feet. This resulted in the July 23 public hearing after community members were better informed. Not in attendance during this public hearing was City Administrator Bart Olson, who has been central in the planning of the Hagemann annexation and data center project, the CyrusOne data center project, and the Kelaka, LLC annexation and data center project.
During the meeting, Mayor John Purcell asked Krysti Barksdale-Noble, Yorkville’s Community Development Director, if the meeting was just a public hearing for annexation and not for rezoning at this point.
“And assuming these go through the process of rezoning, that will involve several meetings, is that correct?” Purcell asked.
Barksdale-Noble said that meeting had already occurred. When the mayor asked how the public would be notified of future meetings, Barksdale-Noble said they would be notified via mail if they are within 500 feet of the subject property when there’s a future planned unit development.
Attorney Kevin Kearney, representing Green Door Capital, addressed the Council after Shamass. He noted the rezoning is consistent with the City’s Comprehensive Plan, which designates the entire area for industrial use.
“Nothing about annexation or rezoning will stop the property owners from using the property as if they’re unincorporated,” Kearney said.
Kearney said they still need to find a developer after the rezoning, which will take time and future City Council approvals.
In 2019, the residential area was re-designated in the Comprehensive Plan from Estate/Conservation Residential to General Industrial. This permits this construction of data centers in the area as long as necessary improvements are made to Eldamain Road. The Estate/Conservation Residential designation is intended for low-density, detached single family housing, with neighborhood developments being sensitive to environmental and scenic features of the area.
In response to Kearney, Shamass said the greater ramifications on community members must be considered.
“We want to point out there will be an effect on your community members; public policy is to protect the community, we are nothing without the community,” Shamass said. “Just because everything is following the process, does not mean it [won’t] have a disparate impact on families. The presumption is that the way they live their lives won’t change. We don’t know how long construction will take. We don’t know how long noises and smells will last. They have young children in those homes.”
Community member Sara Buchanan spoke to the council on behalf of her mother, Mary Auer, who owns one of the impacted homes.
“My mom is 83 years old and this is going to affect her,” Buchanan said through tears. “She is in the hospital right now, so I am here on her behalf. We just got this note to tell that they’re going to put something behind her house. Them changing the zoning is going to affect my family’s business.”
There were no comments from community members during the open public hearing for the similar, adjacently located Kelaka, LLC annexation and rezoning project for construction of another data center campus. Kearney told the Council, they have the permission of the current property owner and it’s a voluntary annexation coming into the city.
Green Door Capital and Kelaka, LLC, are seeking to annex and rezone 148-acres of unincorporated farmland, located south of the Burlington Santa Fe railroad line, southeast of Faxon Road. Like the Hagemann project, the zoning must be changed from R-1 Single-Family Suburban Residential to M-2 General Manufacturing. This land also currently is designated as Estate/Conservation Residential under the 2016 Comprehensive Plan.
According to the City Council, a data center is not consistent with the current future land use designation in the 2016 Comprehensive Plan Update, so if annexation is approved by the city, an amendment will be required to the current Comprehensive Plan. The council said the parcels immediately north of the subject parcels are designated for general industrial future uses and are planned for industrial development.